


Once Upon Us

by angybear (Jo_Jo564)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Attempt at Humor, Blood Magic, Child Abuse, Dark Magic, Eventual Relationships, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Minor Original Character(s), Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Nature Magic, Pining, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Slow Burn, Slytherin Original character, Slytherin Pride, Soulmates - Freeform, but its background, but thats later on, like so much of it, sentient magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28161171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Jo564/pseuds/angybear
Summary: One is a Slytherin with an extremely pureblood family and the other a Gryffindor who works with the boy who lived.After years of mutual pining, will they rewrite the stars for each other?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Original Character(s), Hermione Granger/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 21





	1. Prologue

**Fourth Year**

Outside the Gryffindor common room, the sound rushed and panicked mumbling startled Hermione as she made her way to the entrance. She notices someone pacing in front of the entrance. What could they be doing up here so late, maybe they’re plotting something? 

“What are you doing up here? Especially so late?” 

The figure (Hermione soon begins to realize as she gets closer is a member of Slytherin) freezes for a second and turns facing her.  
“Could ask you the same Granger? Why are you getting up here so late?” The Slytherin askes with a very smug look on their face like they enjoy that they have been caught up here.

Hermione becomes angry and flustered at this, wondering ‘How do they know me and what do they want up here’ she wonders.  
Instead of asking that Hermione gets closer and pulls out her wand, which startles the Slytherin making them jump into a panicked stance. 

With wide eyes, they throw their hands up and yell. “Wait! Wait! I’ll tell you, please don’t curse me.” 

With that Hermione lowers her wand and gives a simple. “Speak.”  
“I was here for you.”  
Hermione notes that while saying this they were looking off to the side and shuffling their feet a bit.  
“For me?” Hermione asks puzzled. “What could you want with me?” 

“You don’t know who I am?”  
Hermione has spent her day in the library studying to make up for a mistake she made on an essay. The last thing she wants or needs is a cocky Slytherin coming up here to bother her.

“Look, you need to go. You aren’t supposed to be up here and have no business with me.” 

The Slytherin nods and begins to leave looking a bit disappointed? Why would they be disappointed, maybe because I saw through their ruse of wanting to see me?

“Wait. What is your name?” Stopping in their tracks the Slytherin turns their head and smirks 

“Valery Vixen. But please call me Vixen or anything you want.” They finish with a wink and continue their descent down the stairs.  
Hermione, flustered and confused by what just happened, looking at the place Vixen disappeared, shakes her head and heads into Gryffindor and ends the day.

Vixen on the other side of the school, walks back to her common room thinking, ‘How could she not remember me? I mean she was the one who talked to me in my first-year and she doesn’t remember me? Has it truly been that long? Maybe this is for the best, Mother would pass away and curse me while doing so if she found out I befriended a Gryffindor.’ As she makes her way inside the common room she thinks of that day, the day she met Hermione Granger.

_Flashback_  
It is the start of the first year for Vixen, she is sitting in a train cabin looking at everything outside the train on the way to Hogwarts in wonder. ‘Maybe this will be my home away from home. No need to keep worrying about making Mother and Father proud. I’ll get to make friends who are nice to me.’ 

The sound of the passenger car opening takes her out of her thoughts. She turns to see a girl with bushy hair and a stern look on her face, “Have you seen a toad?” She asks in a hurried tone.  
“No?”  
“Okay, thank you!” The girl begins to rush away.  
Vixen thinking this is her only chance to make a new friend stops her, “Wait! What’s your name?”  
“Hermione Granger and you?”  
“Valery Vixen.” She says with a smile on her face.  
Hermione looks outside the train cabin and sighs, “I’ll stay here but only for a moment.”  
Vixen pops up with excitement ‘Maybe she’ll be my new friend.’  
Hermione starts off the conversation by asking “Are you the first in your family to come to Hogwarts?”

“No, not in the slightest I come from a very long line of Wizards. I assume you’re the first in your family to go to Hogwarts?” 

“How could you possibly know that?” 

“Oh, you don’t have a name I’ve ever heard before when it comes to Wizard families.” 

“Well yes I’m the first in my family to go to Hogwarts my parents are both muggles, so I’ve been reading many books to learn about Hogwarts and it seems like an amazing place. I’m quite excited to learn more spells.” 

Vixen smiles at this because she likes how she’s so curious about magic. Vixen has always had a special bond with her magic so to see another Witch so eager to learn more is amazing

“You seem like you’re going to be a very curious wizard, and Father always said that ‘a curious wizard makes for a powerful wizard and powerful wizards make for a great wizard.’” 

“Well that is one-way put it, my parents have always said ‘curiosity kills the cat’” she says with a laugh.

With that, she gets up and heads to the cabin door. 

“It was great meeting you, thank you for talking to me.” 

“Same to you, hope to see you at Hogwarts.” 

Hermione then smiles and walks out.  
With this Vixen sighs and turns back to the window, and then smiles and thinks ‘It’s going to be different here.’

_Flashback over_

‘It’s going to be different here. What an idiot I was back then,’ she gives a slight puff of air as she finally makes it to her dorm room. She pulls out her wand and casts a Lumos charm and makes her way to the bathroom.  
After freshening up she gets into bed and lays down and then rolls on her side. She grabs her wand and gives a simple Nox making the room dark, she puts the wand under her pillow, grabs her sheets, and lays down. ‘Oh, how wrong I was, things will never be different for me.’

Outside the Gryffindor common room, the sound rushed and panicked mumbling startled Hermione as she made her way to the entrance. She notices someone pacing in front of the entrance. What could they be doing up here so late, maybe they’re plotting something?


	2. Ophiuchus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the next few chapters are going to be from Val's POV, I'll try to fit some Hermione here and there, but since she doesn't really "remember" her. Also, Val is a black woman so I'll try to bring it up as much.

**First Year**

Vixen’s Pov

Thinking about the conversation she had with Hermione on the train ride,  
There is just something different about her? She makes my magic feel like it’s trying to reach out. I’ve never felt something like this before.

The sound of knocking on the window snaps her out of her thoughts, she turns and pushes her thick hair from in front of her face and notices that it is Lorna Cross. 

Lorna Cross is the bane of Vixen’s existence some days. Pale skin that gets sunburned easily, and stick straight black hair. With blue eyes that seem to be continually staring into people's souls trying to figure out a secret to hold above them. She has a way of saying thighs that make it seem like she is always right. She is very stuck up, always irritatingly doing what other purebloods do, the daughter her mother wishes she gave birth to. She’s my friend in my parents’ eyes, so I have to be around her no matter what. We met when I was 4, and since her parents are powerful my parents have kept her around me. She is fun sometimes when she isn’t holding the same beliefs as her parents.

She opens the door and sits next to me. “The train is a few minutes away from Hogwarts, I think we should get up and put our robes on yeah?”  
“Sure.”   
“Who was the girl that came into the cabin earlier?” 

At this, I slightly panic. My parents can not know that I was with a muggle-born, I’d probably get a howler in the mail from mother and a short letter from father expressing his disapproval.

“Oh she was no one, she just wanted to know if I’ve seen a toad.” 

I just want this conversation to be over already, why does she always try and gain something from someone.

“She seemed to be in there for a while to just be looking for a toad.” She pushes, wanting an answer.

“Yes really Lorna, I’m not here to make friends with anyone who isn’t going to impress my parents,” I say trying to hold off a grimace.   
Vixen is used to saying things like this, having heard her parents say things like this many times.

“Well then Vix, let’s go get dressed”

Off the train and hurdled into a crowd of students who are pointing and looking around amazed. I hear a loud “First years this way!” and feel my arm be grabbed by Lorna. We then shuffle onto boats that will be taking us to Hogwarts. Sitting on the boat just wanting the trip to be quick and of course, there is a “Wellll look at this it’s Vixen.” Of course, I get to put on a boat with Draco Malfoy.

“Yes I’m here Malfoy, we’re the same age where else on earth would I be.” She answers feeling tired of this conversion already.

“Well, there’s no need to be rude Vixen.” Malfoy says, he opens his mouth to say more but is interrupted by another voice “Malfoy leave her alone before she hexes you off the boat”   
Just my luck, that other voice belonged to Blaise Zabini. 

“I don’t need you fighting my battles Zabini, it’s bad enough I have to spend so much time around you.”

“You make it seem like it is a bad thing.” He says with a grin on his face.

Vixen lets out a sigh, “That’s because it is.” At that Malfoy lets out a snort, trying to not laugh at him.

“So I assume we’re all getting into Slytherin this year?” Malfoy says

“Well I hope so, I would not like to see how my parents would respond to me getting into anything but Slytherin.”

Vixen turns away from the conversation and looks at Hogwarts as it gets bigger the more they get close to it.

Vixen has always had a strange connection with her magic, she’s always felt like her magic was a being of its own. The first time she experienced accidental magic it felt as someone took a part of her soul and made it into a star. It felt so bright and shook the room around her throwing the chairs in the room back. The first time she practiced magic, with a child-sized wand, it felt like she was being bonded with something, she has a hard time explaining it, but it feels like intense warmth surrounding her. 

She was surprised to feel her magic interacting with the magic in Hogwarts. It was borderline overwhelming, it felt like her magic was reaching out and touching the magic at Hogwarts. This interaction between the two magics was making her lose track of her surroundings and the people around her. Hogwarts’ magic felt like something old, but at the same time ever-changing and moving around her. She is so immersed in this feeling that she almost doesn’t notice when someone is calling her name.

“-ix? Hey, Vixen stop dozing off we have to head to the Great Hall.” Lorna grabs my attention. I shake my head and try to get rid of the feeling.   
I let myself be dragged off to the Great Hall by Lorna and try my best to pay attention to what Dumbledor is saying before the sorting begins.   
I stand there waiting for my turn, when I hear “Granger, Hermione” This makes my head shoot up in wonder.   
‘I wonder what house she’s going to get, maybe Ravenclaw? She has some traits’ As I think this a loud “Gryffindor” from the hat comes out.  
‘Well that’s a surprise now isn’t it’ I continue to wait my turn, for the loud “Vixen, Valery.”  
I begin my walk up to the hat feeling a bit nervous about what I might get.   
The hat is placed on my head and I feel a connection between the Sorting Hat and me.   
“Well what do we have here, a little Slytherin.” says the hat echoing in my head   
“Well is that it?” I say excitedly, ready to get to my new house.   
“One warning before you go, the magic you hold is not like anyone before you. You have the power to do great things or even horrible things. Follow your path, and what feels right to you.” This is the last thing I hear in my head from the hat before the loud yell of “SLYTHERIN.”

I hop off the chair and walk to the table of Slytherins as they clap and slightly cheer.  
“I was a bit scared that you weren’t going to get in here Vixen,” Blaise says while moving over so I can sit.  
“How could you doubt if I was getting in here, Blaise I would hope you know better.”  
“Oh come on Vixen I was making a joke.”  
She stares at him for less than 30 seconds and then gives a little chuckle.  
“It was a little funny, now let’s eat”

After they finish eating they are taken to the common room by the perfects. The perfect says “Pure-blood.”  
Vixen rolls her eyes at this, she keeps her irritation hidden away from this. Blaise however notices this and gives me a little nudge with his shoulder. She takes this as a sign to tone it down, maybe she wasn’t hiding it as well as she thought.   
They all shuffle into the common room and all look around, this is the place they’ll be spending a good chunk of their lives.  
The perfects stand in front of us, one of them clears their throats to get our attention,  
“You first-years have until 9 pm, that’s when curfew starts so don’t leave after that. Professor Snape will be down here to talk to you soon.”   
With that, they walk away and leave them in the common rooms. 

The fellow first-years look at each other not sure what to do while they wait. Vixen pushes to the front, saying excuse me on her way there. She turns to the crowd of about 15 kids and tells them, “While we wait for Professor Snape, I think we should introduce ourselves. I’ll start with me, I am Valery Vixen.”  
She is answered with silence, she rolls her eyes and goes “We have to get to know each other at some point so someone please.”  
“Fine, I’m Blaise Zabini,” he says from the front of the crowd.   
After he goes the others join in, by the time the last person says their name Professor Snape walks in.

“Sit.” He waits as we all move around to sit in front of him.  
“You have been put into Slytherin because the hat believes that you will flourish in this house, that the main traits that you show can be built upon in this house. I want it to be known that while in this house you will have each other’s backs, and you won’t share the secrets whispered while in here. Anything that happens outside of these walls is between you and the person you share it with.” He takes a brief pause and gives us a look over.

“Every year of Slytherins make their own rules that the fellow members of your year must follow. You don’t have to do it all in one night, but you should start tonight and set some guidelines. I will come back tomorrow morning to give out the rules and your class schedules. Have a goodnight.” 

With that, he walks out of the common room.  
They sit in silence for a second before Vixen stands up and goes, “Well maybe we should write down the things we want on paper.”  
She looks around and sees a piece of parchment and quill.   
“Okay, so I’ll start how about ‘ Any secrets told in the common room, stay in the common room’” She looks up to see if they have any objections.  
“Write down ‘No telling each other parents what’s being said between us.’” Malfoy says looking away from everyone.  
“No Gryfindor acts should be on there” Lorna pipes in.  
They continue this discussion for another hour until they have a list of rules they can agree on:

All secrets told in the house of Slytherin, must stay in the house of Slytherin  
No matter what it is, no telling each other’s parents or teachers  
Only tell teachers if someone’s life is in danger  
No Gryffindor acts that will make the house look bad   
No turning on each other no matter what  
Unless it’s a life or death situation where all factors have been taken into accounts.  
This list can always be added upon as long as a majority of people agree to make amends 

With that, they agree to leave the list in Vixen’s care and head to bed.

Vixen takes the parchment and places it in her chest that has been spelled by her mother to keep others out.  
After making sure it's tucked away safe, she goes to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll give anyone $10 if they can figure out why Hermione doesn't remember Val.


	3. Ananke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ananke is the goddess of inevitability, compulsion, and necessity. I felt as if this describes both Val's compulsion towards Hermione and with her magic. Things between her and Hermione are bound to happen.

**Second Year**

Sitting in the Grand Hall is Vixen, it seems as if she is waiting for someone. She is looking at the door as if someone is coming in there for her. She is surrounded by fellow Slytherins as more and more students pour into the Grand Hall for Breakfast.

They have grown closer since the first year, bonding over how much they wish their parents would understand that they don’t want to be them. Despite what many outsiders think, many of the Slytherin kids don’t want to do what their parents say. They’d probably think “Oh, just tell them that,” or “Disagree with them,” without realizing the consequences we would face from being disowned to cruel punishments some families use.   
This is not to say some Slytherins are evil by their own desire, but being evil isn’t a Slytherin trait it’s one that all humans can have. Vixen has noticed that many of her classmates don’t want to be evil, but are being guided down a path of evil by their family. 

Looking back up to the entrance as Lorna is talking about a dinner she had with her brother during the summer, Vixen notices that Granger still isn’t there. She has been trying to gather up the courage to talk to her but has been too scared to do so. As she sits across from Lorna she thinks, ‘Today is going to be the day I talk to her.’

“and that's when I told the waiter that- Vix are you paying attention to me?” Lorna's head pops into her view. “What are you looking at?” Lorna looks at the entrance of the Great Hall just as Hermione walks in.

Vixen grabs Lorna’s hand, bringing her attention back, “Nothing, it's nothing. I was just zoning out thinking about what I’m doing during yule break.”  
“Yule, I love yule break. I’m traveling out to France during the break” Lorna says excitedly. It is really easy to distract Lorna from things when it is about vacation.   
“Oh, I’m thinking about staying home this break. I don’t think going home is going to be fun.” Vixen says looking back at the entrance and noticing that Hermione is gone. She looks back down at the table and begins to put food on her plate.  
“What’s this little Vixen staying home during the break, what is it? Family problems?” Malfoy jumps into the conversation.   
A small gasp comes from Lorna at Malfoy’s comment, “family problems? Vixen’s mother and father are amazing people, why would she have to avoid going home to them.?” Lorna pushes back at Malfoy’s comment like it truly offended her.  
“You have a warped perspective of her parents.”  
“You take that back Malfoy.”  
“Make me Cross.”

They begin an argument which Vixen has no energy to be a part of, she instead casts her gaze on the Gryffindor table looking. Looking for one specific person, once she laid her eyes on her it was like a chain reaction in her brain.

Vixen thinks that Hermione is a beautiful spirit. She had energy around her that Vixen was constantly drawn to. Vixen never really understood other people, having most relationships with others forced for profit or gain by her parents. So Hermione was an anomaly in her life, someone who could break her from this life. 

If she got the guts to go up to her and say something.

While she is staring at Hermione, she feels someone staring at her. She turns her head slightly to the side and notices that it is none other than Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived, the one who defeated he who shall not be named, or how father refers to him the Dark Lord.

Slightly nervous and very surprised Vixen stands up and gathers her thing standing from the table. This movement brings attention to her from her fellow housemates.

Malfoy looks at her, “Vixen where on earth are you going, you haven’t touched your food. I’ve never seen you not eat, especially in the mornings.”

Vixen, still staring at a very angry Harry Potter, continues to get up from the table giving a simple “I just thought of an idea for a potion I’m going to the Library to read up on it. Don’t worry.”

As she speeds to the entrance, she hears “Who said anything about worrying” and “I wonder how she’s ever supposed to meet someone buried in that Library.”

Finally out and in the hallways Vixen thinks she is safe until she hears a “Hey you, stop there” and of course is Harry Potter. Instead of running for the hills, she sighs and turns around.

This is the last thing she needs, a friend of Hermione thinking bad about her. Hermione, Potter, and Weasley have also grown closer after the near-death experiences they faced last year. Those three are always around each other, or if there are only two of them they’re looking for the third. 

“What could you possibly want from me, Potter?” Vixen says.

“W-What do I want? The same could be asked of you. Why are you staring at Hermione? What are you planning to do to her?” He asked.   
The way he says it irritates Vixen, he thinks that since she is staring at her that she wants to harm her. Maybe it’s because she’s a Slytherin, yeah that’s definitely what it is.

“What’s it to you, Potter, I can stare at who I want when I want to. This isn’t your school you know.” Vixen responds defensively.

“You need to leave her alone. She doesn’t need you trying to rope her into your evil plans”

Vixen blinks at this, that’s right. Vixen is just another evil Slytertherin in their eyes. Remembering that she gives him a blank stare and turns on her heels to the Library.

“Hey, this conversation is not over!” He yells like there aren’t other people in this school.   
“Yes it is Potter, I don’t need to talk to you about the things I do.” She yells back without turning back around.

A week later in the Slytherin common room Vixen decided that staying in Hogwarts was better than going home for Yule break. 

Sitting on the couch in a usually quiet common room, Vixen looks around to make sure no one is around her. She then pushes off the couch and stands up. Vixen then begins to rearrange the room with a Locomotor charm; she moves each piece of furniture to the edge of the room. She does this because she isn’t sure if her magic will throw the furniture back. Once she has a large enough space she plops down in the middle of the space.

She closes her eyes and begins to take in deep breaths. She then begins to allow her magic to flow out and reach out with the magic of Hogwarts. When they meet and start to bond with each other, she focuses her attention on channeling that magic, the energy they create, and begins thinking of somewhere that she feels safe. 

She remembers this valley, it’s the one outside of her parent’s summer home. She remembers how safe she felt away from her parents and inside of this valley room around her slowly morphs into an open valley where the sun is shining so bright, and the sound of the river can be heard off in the distance. 

She opens her eyes and in front of her is the valley. She begins to open her eyes and to her surprise, she is in the valley. She stands up and looks around, the grass on the hills around her look just as green as the first time she saw it. She then sees a blue butterfly and starts to chase after it. 

This is when Vixen learned that she is still very much in the common room, by colliding headfirst with a wall. The impact knocks her down on the floor onto her back, ‘Note to self: Don’t run in imaginary places.’  
She decides on sitting back down and relaxes on the ground. If she focuses hard enough the grass begins to feel real, and she starts to feel the breeze of the wind on her cheeks. She feels the sunlight on her bronze skin warming her up.

‘How am I able to do this? I know that other wizards can’t do the same things I do.’ Vixen begins to remember when she asked her mother about how her magic works and responds to things.   
“Vixen you’re a special little girl, that’s why. You just have magic that works differently.” Vixen remembers how shifty her mother looked like she wanted to get out of this conversation. 

Instead of questioning it, more Vixen decides to leave the valley. She returns to the common room. She stands up and stretches, grabs her wand out, and brings the furniture to its original spots. She then heads to her dorm to retire for the night, and start another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a little bit of trouble trying to fit some things in, so hopefully, it makes sense and builds the plot.


	4. Microscopium

**Spring of Third-Year**

The only good thing about coming home is the greenhouse, it is at the back of the property with enough space to keep growing if I ever felt like upgrading. Mother got it for me when I turned 7, saying that ‘maybe some yard work would give me use in this household.  
As I sit in the greenhouse, during the break on the week of Easter, thinking back on my life living in this house for the past 13 going on 14 years. 

_Flashback_

Sitting in the greenhouse is 9-year-old Vixen, she has been moving plants from the pots they were delivered in, and into their new pots. Her father thought it important that she learned about herbology as it could help her in potions when she gets to Hogwarts.  
Her mother thought differently, of course, she would rather Vixen go into something that didn’t need her in the dirt. She would rather Vixen be a seamstress, but what father says is the law.

“Val darling please leave that wretched greenhouse, why did I ever think that allowing her to have that stupid thing.” The last part is mumbled but still heard by a young Vixen. Hearing her mother’s voice, a little head popped up. “I’m coming mother.”

She rushes out of the greenhouse and into the house. “Stop that running, and take your shoes off. I don’t want you getting mud on the new tiles child.” Her mother scolds.

“Yes, mother,” Vixen says quietly. As she takes her shoes off and continues to sit at the table waiting for the food to be served by the elves. Her mother walks around the table and grabs her face forcefully, and wipes dirt off her cheek. “It is a shame I didn’t have another one of you, maybe then I would’ve gotten the daughter I wanted,” she says dejectedly.  
She lets go of her face and sits at her seat, across from her father. 

When Vixen sits is when her father takes notice that she has walked in, “Ah Valery are you enjoying that new greenhouse? I hope you us if, for your studies, it’s important that you use this greenhouse to get a better understanding of plants. Maybe it will make you an amazing potions master.”  
Her father is the only person in her life that calls her Valery, he chose the name after all. ‘It means strength and power, it’s fitting for my daughter.’ is what he said when she asked why he named her that.  
Vixen likes to think that her father cares for her more than her mother, he tends to talk to her more. He just doesn’t care for her as much as he cares for his position in the world.

As the food appears on the table Vixen almost forgets to answer her father, “Yes father, I will take this seriously.” With that, she begins to dig into the meal.

_Flashback Over_

See that’s the thing, I’ve never been enough for my parents just a means to an end. Their main point in having me was to be able to get more power in the world, and a child can help you do that. So there shouldn’t have been any surprise to me when I was told the news.

**Two Hours Previous**

“Valery come downstairs please our guests have arrived!” Yelled father.  
I look at myself in the full-length mirror, admiring the way the emerald green dress allows my skin to pop, the green making my brown skin standout. The gold jewelry in my hair placed there in order from my mother makes it so that my hair also pops out intertwined with the braid and curls in my hair, grabbing everyone’s attention. 

As I make my way downstairs, I notice who are guests are the Zabinis. It’s not weird that they come to our house for dinner. My parents have been friends with Mrs. Zabini way before I was born, I’ve known Blaise since I could remember. 

When I finally reach the bottom of the stairs my father reaches for my hand to lead me to the dining room, “Come on now everyone, we have quite the night ahead of us.”  
As the night goes on, I lose track of the conversation as the heads of the households speak business.  
“Now Vixen,” says Mrs. Zabini, taking me out of my thoughts, “what are your plans for the summer?”  
“Oh well, I plan on expanding my greenhouse and experimenting with different plants and herbs to see if I can make a new breed. I hope to try and find a new strand of plant that can make potions last longer.” I finished.  
“You’re doing yard work? Why not something less dirty like being a mediwitch or a seamstress?” She asks trying to come off as curious and not conniving. 

“Well, it doesn’t excite me as much honestly.” Vixen hopes this answer is enough for her to stop the questioning. Thankfully it is because after this answer she just hums and goes back to talk with my father. 

After dinner is over we head over to the library where we sit and wait. “Now,” my father starts, “this was an amazing evening, but I would like to end it with even better news. Our families have been close for years, and I think that there is only one way so that in the future this bond continues to grow.” He looks over at Zabini and Mrs. Zabini, then at me.

Now I knew that this little speech of his could mean a lot of things like them starting a new business together, but the next thing to come out of his mouth took me by surprise.

“The only way to keep our families bonded is by having Blaise Zabini marry our beautiful Valery.” He says with a large grin on his face. I’ve never seen him smile so openly before, it takes a second before what he said hits me.

“Father but we are only in our third year, aren’t we much too young for this?” I say as I try and think of anything to get out of this.

“Silly Valery,” he shakes his head like I’m some child, “you won’t be marrying Mr. Zabini until you’re much much older.” 

“Why can’t I just choose who I marry father?” I ask trying to back my tears of anger.

My father responds with a simple “I can’t trust you to make the right choice.”  
“But father-” I try.  
“No Valery, I’m sick of you thinking you can have a say in these matters, now please leave us.” I stand head down in embarrassment and begin to leave the room.  
“Val.” my mother says, and some hope flickers into my heart, maybe she’ll put an end to this.  
“Yes, mother,” I responded.  
“Say goodnight to our guest before you go.”  
Of course, why did I think my mom would be my savior in this. She has never once wanted to help me, she wouldn’t start now.

I turn to the Zabinis and say goodnight to them, and that’s when I catch the look on Blaise’s face. He smirks at me, he’s enjoying this. At the moment I feel my anger reach a new level, so I hurriedly make my way out of the room.

As I head outside of the library, and I hear the sound of my mother’s heels clicking down the hall. She automatically tenses up knowing what is going to happen. She should’ve known that disagreeing with her father in front of guests was going to happen.  
She feels her presence before she could see her, the looming shadow of her mother.

Her mother has only hidden her dislike for Vixen in front of guests and her father. Her mother never wanted to have Vixen, but her father did. She blames Vixen for how miserable she is with her life, that Vixen is the reason for how much she hates life.

Mother places her hand on Vixen’s right shoulder, and gives a “What have I told you?”  
Vixen doesn’t answer her, paralyzed in fear by what would happen if she gives the wrong answer.

Upset by a lack of an answer Mother tightens her grip on her shoulder starting to dig her nails into Vixen’s shoulder, “What have I told you?” Digging her nails more and more with each word.  
Vixen gives a quiet hiss of pain, feeling tears start to sting at the bottom of her eyes.  
“Not to make a scene in front of the guests.”  
Not pleased by Vixen’s answer, Mother let’s go of her shoulder and grabs onto her hair, pulling so her head goes back and her eyes are on her mother.  
“Look me in the eye when I talk to you Valery, What have I told you?”  
“Not to make a scene in front of the guests,” Vixen says again, tears starting to fall on her cheeks from the grip on her hair.  
Mother doesn’t let go for a few seconds, just staring at Vixen. She finally let's go with a sigh and smiles at Vixen.  
“Now you can go.”

When released Vixen walks away in a haste, not wanting to be in that house anymore. She runs to her greenhouse, the one place she could feel safe right now.

When inside I let out a yell that felt like it was coming from the bottom of my soul, and with it comes a wave of magic that sends objects flying. After that, I just sit on the ground feeling lost and hopeless in my own life.  
I was silly to think that I could choose my future. Maybe if I told them that I’m more interested in guys than girls, I wouldn’t have to marry him.

Vixen has done a lot of thinking about this. She has never been shown what actual love is, but instead relationships based on transactions. So over the past year, she has been thinking to herself ‘who do I like?’ or ‘who do I find to be my type?’  
The answers to those questions have never had a set gender. She has never felt an attraction to anyone, never being shown how love works can do that to someone. This was until she met Granger, watching her from afar or even hearing her in class makes Val’s heart do weird things. Hermione’s magic feels wonderful to Val’s, it’s like her magic finds equilibrium when around her.  
She doesn’t know how to explain to her parents that she doesn’t feel anything but dislike towards Zabini because she knows she’ll get back a ‘Learn to live with’ from her mother. 

She hears the door to the greenhouse opening and notices that it’s Zabini. She quickly wipes the tears off her face and gives, “What the hell do you want?”  
He quickly throws his hands up with a chuckle, “No need to bite my head off”  
This just seems to make Vixen more upset as she looks at him with a look that could kill. Noticing that Zabini sighs and takes his jacket off and hands it to her, “Here put it on it's going to get cold soon.” 

She looks at him with an eye roll and takes it from him with a huff. He then sits next to her and starts talking, “Look I’m pretty sure neither of us wants to do this, but we have to Vixen.”

“Oh yeah sure we have to do this, give me a break Blaise. I know that you’re enjoying my misery.”

He huffs at this, “Vixen look, I’m only doing it because my mom wants me to. Okay, the act that I give around others is just that. I don’t like it, but if it keeps me from getting disowned it is what I’m going to do.”

Vixen looks at him, just staring. This is the last thing she wants to be doing with her life, she would rather not do this but at this point, it’s out of hands.  
She then looks off to the side and tells him, “if this is going to work we have to set ground rules okay?”

“If what is going to work?”

She shakes her head and looks at him “Don’t be daft Zabini we have to pretend that we are dating so our parents are pleased.”  
She takes his silence as a cue to go on.  
“First rule, anything and I mean anything, we tell each other stays like that between us only. Next, we only hold hands and kiss only, as much as it will pain me to do so, it must be done. And only around our parents okay? Do we have an agreement Zabini?”

He chuckles, “You really are the queen of Slytherin huh? Okay sure stop calling me Zabini and we have a deal.”

Vixen looks at him lost, “Queen of Slytherin? Blaise what on earth could you possibly be speaking of?”

Blaise outright laughs at this “Val, are you being serious? You boss around everyone in Slytherin no matter the year they are in or even who their parents are.”

Vixen lets out a huff of amusement, “Queen of Slytherin huh? Well, that has a ring to it. Also, don’t call me Val.” 

Blaise looks at her bewildered, “Oh you can’t be serious right now”

“Dead serious.” She answers with a full tooth grin.

Before he could give a response the sound of the door opening interrupted him.  
“Blaise honey your mother is saying it is time to go home.” It is my mother coming in with a fake smile plastered on her face.

“Oh, well it is time to retire for the night,” he says while standing up. “Goodnight Vixen,” he gives me a kiss on the cheek causing me to smile. He walks out the door and gives my mother a nod.  
When he’s gone, mother turns to me with a surprised look, “Vixie sweetie-”

“He’s gone mother, there is no need to pretend.”  
She gives me a slight glare but makes no move to do anything else.

It’s then when I realized he left his jacket with me. I get up in a hurry and open the greenhouse door, and thankfully he is still there, “Blaise your jacket!” I yell.  
“Return it to me back at school!” He yells back with a wink.  
‘Looks like our plan of playing into parent’s hands is on.’


	5. Coeus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vixen heads to the Libary to get more information about her magic.  
> Coeus is the titan of intellect and the axis of heaven around which the constellations revolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in POA in April so after the first Sirius "attacks" at the school. Vixen is 13 but will be turning 14 later on. Her birthday is on April 29, 1980.

**3rd year**

Vixen, sitting in the library, wanted to see if she could find anything about different kinds of magic.

‘Maybe I should write my mother a letter, she only writes to me on my birthday, and since it’s coming up, I’ll get a response back.’ 

She writes to her mother,

> _Dear mother,  
>  I hope this letter gets to you in good condition.  
>  Mother do you remember when I was about 8, and I had my first accidental magic experience and it was stronger than what most kids have done, and you told me that I was meant for something amazing.  
>  When I told you about how my magic felt, and that no one else felt the same way I did about my magic and you told me “Vixen you’re a special little girl, that’s why. You just have magic that works differently.” Why am I special, mother? How can I do these things, I’ve recently been able to expand my magic around me and create a different reality?  
>  How am I able to bond with my magic and Hogwarts magic around me? I can feel the magic of others around my mother, I just want to know these things to be able to expand my power and knowledge._
> 
> __
> 
> _Best wishes,  
>  Vixen. _

After writing the letter Vixen calls for her owl Ira.  
“Hey there Ira,” Vixen says while petting the top of her head, “I trust you’ll give this to mother in prime condition.” Ira nips at her finger in response. She ties the letter to her leg and releases her.

Vixen stands up when she’s sure that Ira has left to deliver the letter, heading to the Reference Section she looks for books on ancient magic and different types of magic.  
She walks down the aisle of the book section looking for anything that grabs her attention. She walks for a good 3 minutes until she feels something pull her eyesight, a book called The Old and Ancient. She stands on her tippy toes, too short to reach the book, and pulls out her wand to get the book from the shelf and looks at it. 

The book is hefty; Vixen thinks it's about 1000 pages worth of text. The book is covered in old leather, and it is in great condition for a book that is about the old and ancient. She takes this book back with her to the table getting ready for a lengthy read.

In the book, there are 10 chapters and it is 986 pages long; the first chapter is called Nature Magic, a way of the old. 

With a heavy sigh, Vixen begins reading the book.

Hours later Vixen is still reading the book and has gotten to the third chapter of the book.  
‘This book is very informational, many of the types of magic they have explained in the book are similar to what I can do’ Vixen notes.

She remembers reading a passage from chapter 2 that goes, ‘... and many of these wizards were great illusionists. Eventually being able to push their illusion to those around them and trapping them there. Others can knock people into a world where they aren’t moving in reality, but are in the illusion created.’

Vixen writes this down as something she wants to test, later on, maybe it’ll do some good if she masters this.

She continues on reading until she gets to the 4th chapter that is called The Great Families. 

‘There are 3 main types of magic, as explained in previous chapters, nature magic, illusion magic, and blood magic. With these types of magic are the families where the magic originated from. These families are 1000 years old, and their magic formed as wizards began to practice one type of magic. Giving those in their bloodline a stronger affinity for the type of magic until that's all they could do. There is the Primrose family, the keepers of nature. The Anansi family, the masters of illusion. The Gazini family, the wielders of blood. From these families come one more powerful family that is a mixture of these. The ------------ family is a combination of all three families, being the most powerful-’ 

At this Vixen stops reading, there is a whole piece of paper burnt out where the family name is supposed to be. She looks at it confused but continues reading,

‘There are many who have these magic abilities, many only showing two types are the families crossed with each other more. Strangely there is a generation of the --------- family that is missing. Wizards are going to blend with the normal magic wielders, but never a whole family and especially not from the most powerful family. The mystery remains on what happened to this family, and if they are still cont-’

Vixen stops reading at the sound of “Clear the library everyone, it is close to bedtime. All students must return to their common rooms.”  
Vixen looks around her and notices that it has gotten darker. Ever since Sirius Black attacked the school they have been making sure that there aren’t any students out of their common rooms past bedtime. 

Vixen looks around and notices that a few hours have passed since she started reading. While she is packing up she hears, “Hermione come on, we’ve been waiting for you for ages now.” 

She assumes that is Ron Weasley has never had a conversation with him before, but knowing he’s always with Hermione. She peeks out of the cove where she was sitting to see glimpses of Hermione, she’s as pretty as always. ‘I wonder what she was reading about, most likely something fascinating.’ Vixen thinks in her own world, she snaps out of this gaze when she sees Hermione turning her way. Vixen ducks back in a rush not wanting to be seen by them, hoping her hair isn’t sticking out from the cracks. She waits until she no longer hears the sound of shuffling where they last were. 

She peeks out and notices that they are gone, she laughs to herself ‘Why can’t you just talk to her?’ She thinks upset at her fear of talking to the girl.

‘Maybe I’m scared of being rejected’ a small voice in the back of her head pipes in. 

She gives a loud sigh at this, ‘Scared? I live in a house with kids whose parents fought with the Dark Lord. I’m not scared of anything. I’m so not scared of her I’ll talk to her again.’ Vixen grabs her things and heads to check the book out

Back in her common room, she closes the curtains surrounding her bed and goes “Lumos”. With a light source, she begins reading the next chapter called How to practice the Ancient magic,  
‘When there is a new child born or a new practitioner, their magic is felt by others in the magical realm. One must have been born into a family that practices ancient magic or is a decedent to do any of these spells. If you aren’t either of these the spells won’t work.’

Vixen assumes that her parents or one of them might be from a long line of illusionists. So maybe those spells will work best for her. She hesitates when she reads that first part, her mother doesn’t want her looking into whatever this is. If she does, would her mother figure it out? Or maybe it’s her father that is part of an Ancient magic family. She wants to read more on it, so she decides it's worth the risk of her mother finding out.

She makes a game plan of learning the illusion spells first and then going after the others. She beings her reading,

‘Illusionist must have a superb focus, as we move to more advanced spells you’ll begin to understand.  
The first spell we are going to study is…’

As Vixen continues to read, she loses herself more and more into the book. Feeling as her magic has been awakened by something. The need to read was caused by her magic as if it was thirsty for more knowledge.

**LOCATION UNKNOWN**

There is a light that is lit from a small cave, seeming to be coming from a small fire. Next to this fire is a sleeping figure, this figure is a woman with sepia brown skin and Platinum afro sitting below her shoulder blades. 

This figure sleeping, with slow deep breathing, suddenly jolts awake. She sits up quickly and looks around, eyes frantic and wide. When she notices that no one is around her, she backs up to the wall of the cave she is in.

When she finally realizes what feeling caused her to wake up she brings her hands to her chest and takes a deep breath. She moves her hands away from her chest and with them comes a golden orb.  
The golden orb is surrounded by up to ten tendrils that range in color all-powerful and teaming with life around the orb. All but one, this one smaller seemingly moving around the others shy and curious of its surroundings. This smaller tendril was a bright red, complementing the golden orb in the background.

This figure looks at this with wide eyes and says, “My daughter she’s still alive.”


	6. Mnemosyne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mnemosyne is derived from the Greek word mnēmē, which means remembrance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so hopefully this doesn't read as very rushed. This is also kind of a filler chapter so :)

//////// Fourth-Year //////// 

Seen outside the castle by the greenhouses is Vixen.

‘I can’t believe mother this summer, honestly, that woman was more insufferable than ever’ Vixen fumes in her head. It has been a few weeks since she has gotten back to Hogwarts and she is still upset about this. It started after that later, the one where I asked about my magic. Her response is just so mysterious.

> _Vixen,  
>  Don’t look into this any further. You must know that looking down this path about magic, and yours especially will bring no good. You’re just a special Vixen, trust me when I say this there isn’t any need to worry about this. Your magic is just as special as you, but it is nothing to look into.  
>  Love,  
>  Mother. _

Her weird behavior started when I got back home. Normally she is off spending fathers money in different countries, however, this break was spent watching me. She checked up on me while I was working on the greenhouse, or while I was sitting in the study across from my room. It was like she was looking for something, or waiting for me to do something wrong. When asked what she was looking for, she would get startled and walk away. I still managed to learn new spells from the nature magic portion of the book and illusion. I’m a bit hesitant when it comes to blood magic, however, my magic has a pull towards it but I don’t think I’m ready for it myself.

‘The way this magic works is difficult to get down. The magic we learn at Hogwarts typically has to be said for it to be done. Even with nonverbal magic, the word still has to be thought of. With this magic, I have to feel the energy of my magic move and do what I ask of it. Some spells like moving grass and vines to entrap people or using illusions to become invisible are easy to do, others like conjuring plants in my hand or getting animals to listen to me are harder to get down.’ Vixen continues in this thought until she is near the entrance of the school. 

Here she hears two voices, she walks to them but remembers to keep herself hidden from them.  
“Malfoy I have asked you more than once to leave me alone.” Hermione? Why is she out here, and with Malfoy of all people?  
Vixen gets closer, they still have yet to notice her presence. As she gets closer she sees them, neither of them can see her, but she is in distance to help if needed.  
“Granger, I do what I feel like. I wasn’t following you, I was walking the school grounds and bumped into you. What makes you think I would want to follow you? Do you know who my father is? I would never stoop as low to follow some little mud-” Before he could finish that sentence Vixen sends out a Silencio. This shocks both Malfoy and Hermione, causing both of them to take their wands out.  
I roll my eyes and send a _Stupefy_ at Malfoy, sending him falling to the ground. I make eye contact with Hermione, who still has her wand out but she is lowering it as I put mines away.  
“I could’ve handled that you know.” She says with a huff, putting her wand away.  
“I know Herm-Granger. I know you can handle yourself well enough.” I say and send a wink her way. I turn away and start heading back to the entrance.  
“Wait,” Hermione shouts from her position. Vixen stops and spins on her heels, allowing Hermione to catch up.  
“You never told me the real reason you were waiting outside the Gryffindor common room.” She says.  
“Granger I could’ve sworn I told you I was waiting there for you,” Vixen says with a teasing smile.  
“Yes, but that’s not a real reason,” Hermione says with a slight shake of her head.  
“Has no one ever waited outside the Gryffindor common room to talk to you? That’s strange, with how beautiful you are you would think there would be a line of people, no?” Vixen says with her smiling getting bigger. Even bigger, if that’s possible with how flustered Hermione began to get.

Before Hermione could respond to that, a figure turns the corner. “Vixen, there you are. Where have you been? People are going to start putting their names into the goblet soon. Also, have you seen Draco?” The figure turns out to be Blaise Zabini.  
Vixen only turns her head at him keeping her body towards Hermione, “Yeah he’s on the floor over there. I stunned him, can you grab him?” She tells him and turns back to Hermione. 

As he walks past them Vixen tilts her head and walks a bit closer. “You know I’ve never had this close of a look of the amazing Hermione Granger. I like it a lot, maybe we should do this more?” Hermione gets flustered at the way Vixen saying her name sounds, like something, was reaching out to grab her. She instead of focusing on this feeling says, “We will do nothing of the sort, I would have you know there are many people who are in line for me.”  
“Really? Is there a way for me to get to the front of that line?” Vixen says, stopping right in front of Hermione. “I would like to be first in line, maybe you could allow for that to happen.”  
This is the first time Hermione has had a closer look at her, and she takes it all in.  
The way the sun reflected off of her skin giving her a glow, the way her brown eyes seemed to be holding secrets, the way her hair sat above her shoulders and framed her face, the way her lips-

Interrupting her gaze are the voices of Ron and Harry, “Hermione are you out here.” Before they could step into view Hermione back away from Vixen, causing her to pout, she gives her one last look and makes her way to the boys.  
“I’m right here.” She sees them and walks right past them, they slightly look at where she came from and shrug their shoulders and head back inside.

Vixen on the other hand is still trying to get over the feeling she felt from her magic when she was close to Hermione. She sighs and looks at Blaise who was watching the thing go down.  
“You know that she doesn’t trust you right.” He says smugly.  
“Yes, Blaise I know she doesn’t trust me. That doesn’t make me the fact that I like her to go away.” She says with a slight chuckle.  
“I know, I’ve been ‘dating’ you for a while now-” Blaise starts but is stopped by Malfoy waking up from the spot Blaise left him in.  
“You two are dating?” He asks groggily “Nice going, Blaise. No Draco we aren’t dating Blaise just wishes we were dating. Now get up.” She gives him a little nudge and turns to head back to the great hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the Hermione and Vixen scene.


	7. Dionysus

In the great hall, early morning a loud groan can be heard from the Slytherin table  
“Vixen it has been weeks, can you please stop it.” Blaise is sitting across from Vixen. The two are the only ones at the Slytherin table.  
“Stop what Blaise?” Vixen answers trying to seem innocent.  
“Stop looking at her. She doesn’t want anything to do with you.” Blaise answers already tired of this conversation.  
“Listen, Blaise, she hasn’t told me that herself, so I will keep trying until she tells me to bugger off,” Vixen says rolling her eyes.  
“Vix, does she even fancy girls? Last I heard she’s going to the Yule Ball with a fellow. What’s his name again Vicnet Krun?” Blaise says.  
“Oh stop being an asshole, his name is Viktor Krum.” Vixen answers back.  
“What about Viktor Krum?” asks Lorna, sitting down to join them.  
Not in the mood to deal with her today, Vixen looks at Blaise, “Oh, just how Vixen was thinking about asking him to the ball.” Vixen gives him a hard kick for that comment, making Blaise stick his tongue out like a child.  
Lorna, not paying attention to their childish actions, scoffs. “Yeah, I was thinking about asking him to the ball as well. But the muggle-born got to him before I could. Anyways Vixen I hope you have a dress for the ball and a date. Who are you taking Vixen?” Lorna asks  
Vixen is stuffing her mouth with eggs, half-listening to the conversation, and giving a simple “Blaise.”  
This makes Lorna go on a rant, “You’re going with Zabini, no offense, but you could go with anyone else. Think of what your mother would say-” As she goes on Vixen zones of the conversation.

Blaise wasn’t done with this conversation they started this morning, bothering Vixen, even more, when they are in the library during a free block.

“Vixen, I’m only trying to tell you this because I know you and I know how this is going to hurt you if it goes wrong.” He says in an exasperated tone.  
“You don’t know me, Blaise,” Vixen responds looking up from her book with a glare, starting to tense up.  
“Of course that’s the only part you respond to. Vixen I do know you, I know the face you make when you find something interesting in a book. I know that you would rather wear a skirt or pants. I know that you bite your lip, which is a bad habit and you should stop. I know that you have trust issues, which is why you only responded to me saying I know you.” He says starting irritated but then calming down.  
With that Vixen relaxes her shoulder and looks off to the distance. “Look Blaise, I’m sorry for saying that. But she’s different, okay, I just know she is. I know going for her is a long shot but I’m willing to get hurt to get the chance of being with her. I know you don’t want to see me hurt, and I love you for that, but this is something I have to do. She just makes me feel safe.”  
“How could she make you feel safe Valery? You don’t even know her that well.” Blaise responds.  
“I’ve already told you about the whole thing with my magic. I don’t know how to explain it but she makes my magic reach out to her and wants to stay there forever. It feels different from how it acts around others, like you it feels calm because I trust you. Other people don't even have a reaction.” Vixen says looking at him.  
Blaise seems to take in what she says and signs. “Okay, but can you at least try getting to know her more before trying to get yourself hurt over her? Please at least do that.”  
Vixen smiles nodding her head at this, “Yes I can do that.”  
With that, the two fall into silence and read their books.

A week before the ball Vixen is sitting outside of the Greenhouses in the grass. Hermione is walking to the Owlery when she sees her. She was on her way to the owlery wanting to deliver a letter to her parents when she saw Vixen.

‘What is she doing out here?’ She wonders. ‘It’s odd, most kids are heading to the great hall for breakfast or just getting out of bed.’

Instead of interrupting asking her Hermione just instead stares at her. Hermione stares at her hair noticing how thick it is, her hair sits above her shoulders like a black cloud that doesn’t let light in.

She notices her skin seems to glow under the morning sunlight, her darker complexion made seemingly taking in the light.  
‘There’s something strange about her, why does she want to get to know me? I can’t believe she would want to get to know me, she has to have a reason as to why.’ She thinks still looking at her.

She begins to look at her face, something about Vixen drawing her in. She casts her gaze at her eyes, closed and Hermione wants to see them open again wanting to stare into them. She looks at her nose, which has a smooth bridge that ends with a little button. She looks at her lips blushing, quickly looking away from her lips and back to her eyes. This time however her eyes are open.

The two stare at each other stuck in the feeling that is going around them. A feeling that Hermione has never felt, when she stares into Vixen’s eyes Hermione feels like she’s staring into the eyes of someone she has known for years.

Vixen tilts her head and smiles at her, “enjoying the view Granger?”  
This snaps Hermione from her eyes and makes her eyes go wide as she blushes. “What view I was, I was just wondering what you were doing out here.”

Vixen’s smile gets bigger, “You wound me, Granger, how am I not a view.” She stands up and continues, “I was meditating, wanted to clear my mind. It's been a stressful week. Maybe you should try it, I know being friends with Harry Potter can’t be an easy thing.” She gives her one last smile and heads back to the castle.

Hermione stands there for a few seconds stunned at what just occurred. She shakes her head bringing herself back to reality, and heads to the Owlery. ‘What was that feeling? I’ve never had that happen to me before, maybe I should forget about it.’

“Blaise if you don’t hurry up we’re going to be late!” Vixen yells standing outside the boys’ dormitory. She stands outside for another minute or so and gets ready to yell for him again.  
“I’m here, calm down I’m right here.” he rushes out of the room with his tie untied.  
“Hurry and fix your tie, we’re going to be late,” she says, turning around and grabbing her shawl.  
“We’re not going to be late, Vixen the ball doesn’t start for another 10 minutes.” He says as he is looking down and fixing his tie.  
“That is hardly enough time for us to walk upstairs and be able to make an entrance Blaise.”

Instead of answering him he grabs her arm and pulls her out of the common room.  
They make their way up to the Great Hall with Vixen talking to the Blaise the entire way up.

“... and I don’t understand how they expect me to learn another language, I’ve already learned French because they wanted me-”  
“Vixen we’re here.” He interrupts her.  
“Oh, okay. Let’s head in.” She says grabbing onto his arm so he can lead her in.

She notices Potter and Weasly heading in looking like they were debating something until they stop and look behind them.

At the foot of the stairs, Vixen looks up and sees Hermione. She was wearing a stunning dress and looked even more stunning. Vixen was so transfixed by her that she didn’t notice Blaise talking to her until Blaise pulled her arm.

“Val let’s go, stop staring before someone notices.” He then rushes her into the ballroom.

As they walk in, she gets people waving at her and complimenting her dress.

She decided to wear a red wine-colored dress, her mother got it custom-made for her wanting her to make an impression. She is wearing a low cut dress that stops slightly below her collarbone and drops into a v shape around her chest. It slightly puffs out around her arms and continues down to her ankles, squeezing around her waist and flaring out at her hips. Down the back of the dress are black buttons that have silver specks on them.  
On the dress is a silver piece of jewelry that hangs from the chest area of the dress, and with gold bracelets on her wrists.

She and Blaise watch from the sidelines as the champions start to dance, waiting to join in on the dance. When they finally join the dance, Blaise takes the lead guiding her through the dance. He picks her up and lifts her into the air, Vixen gives a little laugh at this, spinning her around and gently placing her down on the ground. They continue dancing until the music stops, the dance floor now filled with more people.

The music begins to take a more upbeat tone and the crowd begins to start dancing again. Vixen dances awhile, but eventually steps outside for a breather, she isn't the biggest fan of parties; They remind her of the many parties her parents forced her into going too. As she stands there looking at the moon she begins thinking of her future and how it is out of her control.

She doesn’t know how long it was she was standing outside the castle but someone coming into her view takes her out of her thinking.  
“Granger? What are you doing out here? You should head inside because it is pretty cold, I wouldn't want you getting sick.” Vixen says with a look on her face she hopes to come off as teasing.  
Hermione simply responds with an “I’ll be fine.” She looks like she has been crying, she stands away from Vixen looking at the door she came from.

Vixen wanting to keep the conversation going, “So I saw the paper about you and Potter? You only fancy wizards Granger?”  
“I fancy anyone who gives me the basic respect I deserve, so no not only wizards,” Hermione answers, getting a little tense.  
“So maybe I can be in that group of people you fancy,” Vixen says, her lips quirking up a bit.  
Hermione rolls her shoulders back, “No you can’t be in that group of people, I don’t trust you Vixen.”  
“You don’t trust me?”  
“No, I don’t trust you.” seeming a bit angry or holding back anger.  
Vixen confused and a bit peeved, “Why don’t you trust me? Why can’t you trust me? Am I not good enough for the great Hermione Granger? Am I being a Slytherin that bad?” Hermione responds “You truly don’t know why I can’t trust you?”  
Vixen shakes her head at this, confused.  
“The train? The first time we met?” Hermione walks closer to her.  
Vixen responds perplexed “The first time we met? Granger, we had a nice conversation the first time we met.”  
Hermione shakes her head, “It’s what you said after I left, to you Slytherin friend when she asked who you were talking to. That you weren’t here to make friends with anyone who isn’t going to impress your parents. Why would I want to be friends with anyone like that?"  
“Granger, I only said that so it wouldn't get back to my parents, they would've... I don't want to think about what they could have done. But you have to trust me, I didn't mean what I said to Lorena." Vixen says with a tinge of hopelessness in her voice.  
“Why should I trust that? You could just be saying that so you can get close to me and use me for something.”

Vixen instead of answering just looks away from her not knowing what she can say to convince her. Vixen doesn’t blame her for not trusting her, she comes from a family who believes in pureblood values, and a house where many kids and their parents are the same. She understands the hesitancy in wanting to trust her, but she wishes she would give her a chance.

“I-I can’t be friends with someone I don’t trust Vixen.” She says this and then walks back into the castle.

Vixen just takes a breath in and sits on the ground, not caring about heading into the ball anymore, just waiting for this to be over.

She sits outside as the ball dwindles down, she doesn’t know how much time has passed since she’s been sitting outside. She has been thinking about if it was really worth it, worth not being the daughter her parents have always wanted. Every time she tried being someone different, the Valery she wanted to be, there has always been a negative reaction. From her parents threatening to disown her, or her mother wishing she had another daughter so she didn’t have to deal with Vixen, to this.  
She just wants someone to like the Valery Vixen that likes to read books in the library till midnight, the Valery enjoys cooking food with the plants she grew in the garden. Maybe she’s not meant to be that person, and she should just give up on that dream.

As she sits on the cold ground she distantly hears someone calling her name, “Valery, hey can you hear me, Val. You need to get inside because it's freezing.”  
They move in front of her and she realizes that it’s Blaise.  
His face comes into view, and his normally relaxed face looks a bit frantic.  
“Hey, Vixen why are you crying?”  
She reaches a hand to her face, flinching a little because her hands are freezing, she touches her cheeks and feels that they are wet.  
“I didn’t even know I was crying.” She says with a little chuckle  
Blaise not seeing the humor in this sits next to her face still serious.  
“What happened Valery?”  
She attempts to crack a smile and wants to say nothing happened, but instead, she starts crying even more.  
She throws her arms around Blaise and cries into his chest saying “No wants to be around the real me Blaise, what’s wrong with me?”  
Blaise, shocked for a second, pulls her into a hug and tells her, “There’s nothing wrong with you Vixen, people just don’t understand you. It’s okay I’m here for you.”  
She doesn’t respond to this and keeps crying, just letting out all of the despair she felt from these past few years.  
After a while she stops crying and pushes away from Blaise, as he releases his hold around her she scoots back wiping her tears from her face.  
“Sorry about that.”  
“Don’t apologize, I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen you cry like that.”  
“Probably never, I was holding that cry in for a while.” She says with a laugh.  
They both laugh at this for a while and fall into silence.  
“Come on let’s head inside.”  
He stands up and gives her a hand. She grabs his hands and gets pulled up. She doesn’t let go of his hand; Instead, she squeezes his hand getting his attention, “Thank you for being there for me, it's been important to me.”  
He nods his head in response, “Of course, you would do the same for me.”

She lets go of his hand and they head back inside.  
She sees a group of Slytherins standing outside the entrance of the great hall, the ball on the inside slowing down. One of the people from the group, Pansy Parkinson, spots the two and brings the attention group to them.

“Vixen there you are.” She says, a smile forming on her face

She moves towards the two, as she gets closer her face morphs from a smile to one of concern.  
She and Pansy have been able to get closer throughout the end of first-year, they spent more time together during breaks getting to know each other. Vixen trusts her, she has yet to tell her about Hermione but that’s because she’s scared of her reaction.

“Hey, what happened out their Vix,” she says in a soft tone, not wanting the others to hear.

“Just leave it Pans, we shouldn’t be talking about this out in public.”  
She nods when she sees that there are still people walking around and sitting on the steps.  
“Let’s head to the common room, we can talk about it there.”  
She grabs Vixen’s hand and leads her up the stairs.

When they finally get downstairs and in the common room, the 4th years sit on the couches and get comfortable.

“So what happened while you two were outside,” Pansy asks  
“We had an argument.”  
“About what?”  
They look at each other, Blaise nods at her, and Vixen lets out a sigh. She stands up and tells them, “We’re dating-”  
A chorus of “What?” is let out by their little audience, she throws them a glare, and they silently down.  
“We’re dating, and we argued about how I didn’t want to tell anyone yet. Blaise brought up some good points, and I cried because I was scared of people’s reactions.” She finished.  
“Why didn’t you tell us?” “How long have you guys been dating?” “How did this happen?” comes from the group.  
She gives a playful glare at Blaise to which he chuckles.  
“We didn’t tell you because I wasn’t ready to tell anyone, the only people who knew were our parents. It’s going to be a year during yule break, and we got together after dinner at my parents’ house. Blaise confessed to me like a complete loser.”  
They laugh at the last part, and Vixen sits back down next to Blaise.  
“Also guys, don’t tell anyone. I’m fine with you guys knowing but no one else.”  
After she makes sure they all agree to what she said and goes “Okay, I think this enough for today I’m going to head to bed. Night everyone.”

She then gets up and walks away from the couch, wanting out of the dress and to sleep.  
As she gets into the room she grabs her wand from the night table and goes, “Accio cookies.”  
Her chest that she keeps near her bed rattles a bit and then goes flying into her hands. She catches the cookies and sets them on her bed, and sits down with a sigh.  
She stretches her arms up into the air, cracking the bones in her back.  
She reaches her arms to her back and begins to unbutton herself from her dress.  
Once out of the dress she’s wearing a black tube top bodysuit, grabs the cookies, and eats them.  
She lays down on her bed and looks up at her ceiling, and starts thinking about what she was going to do next.

‘Maybe I should start acting like the daughter my parents want. I’ve been stopping myself from being that girl, but maybe I should. Being a different person has been giving me negative reactions.’

She moves the cookies onto her bedside table, and picks up the dress, and fixes it on a hanger. After the dress is situated she levitates it to the chest and drops it on the chest.  
She then lays back into bed and pulls her covers over herself and falls asleep.

This is the dress Valery was wearing.


	8. Thanatos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place from the final task in goblet of fire and the summer between 4th and 5th year.

Vixen walks down the halls of Hogwarts in a hurry, she’s late to the viewing of the last task of the Triwizard tournament. If she doesn’t get there soon the rest of the Slytherins are going to bug her about this for weeks.  
  
She already missed the second task, hiding away in the library wanting nothing to do with other people around her. This something that has upset those closest to her, as she has secluded herself more and more. She spends most of her free time away in the library studying or outside meditating.  
  
They’ve claimed Vixen has changed, that she is snapping at people more, or being bossier. Which is something Vixen can’t outright deny, she is behaving in a way her parents would be slightly happy to see.  
  
Their daughter finally showed her power to get what she wants. She has used her family name to get her way in recent weeks, or even looked down on people so she could get her way.  
Vixen isn’t proud of this but she feels lost; No one wanted to be around her when she didn’t act like this, and now no one wants to be around her like this either. She sees it as a lose-lose situation.  
Still, she had loyalties to her housemates and promised to go to the final task with them, as Draco wanted to cheer on Krum so the others wanted to join in.  
She just miscalculated what time it was when she first started studying in the library. 

When she finally makes it outside she looks around the crowd for where her friends were sitting. As she casts her gaze around she sees Pansy waving at her, trying to gain her attention. Vixen perks up at this and walks towards them. Next to Pansy, was Blaise, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Lorna, Nott, and Greengrass.  
She finally gets to them, and the rest of them notice her. Pansy scoots over so she can sit next to Blaise. As she sits she sees that Crabbe has ‘Krum’ written on his forehead and gives a slight laugh, air puffing from her nose.  
She sits next to Pansy and asks, “How'd you see me in the Crowd?”  
“Your hair, you normally have it in a tight bun, but today you had it out in its natural state. You’re the only person in Slytherin who wears their hair like that.” 

  


Vixen gives a smile at that, she didn’t have time to change from the library to the maze. With that, she looks out to the maze and realizes that everyone was waiting for something to happen. She turns to Blaise to ask him, “What are we waiting for?”  
  
“For either Potter or Diggory to return from the maze with the Cup, Fleur and Krum have already lost.”  
She nods at this and sits looking at the maze.

After a while of looking she, and the rest of the audience, see two figures fall to the ground. There is an immediate sound of cheering from the audience and the music begins once again. Everyone is cheering on their feet at the return of the two, now champions of Hogwarts, but Vixen gets a bad feeling. As she continues to look at Potter and Diggory, she looks a little close and then turns to Blaise “I think something is wrong Blaise, Diggory isn’t moving from the ground.”

  


She isn’t the only one who thinks something has gone wrong as everyone begins to get closer to the two, Vixen decides to go down there as well. She makes her way to the grass, standing by the banner, and looks as Headmaster Dumbledore pulls Potter off of Diggory. He begins to ask him what seems to be a series of questions, she can’t hear everything that Potter says but hears him say “He’s back, He’s back.” Vixen’s eyes widened at this, could it be?

As she continues to look on she hears someone go, “Keep everybody back.” Professor McGonagall sees her and begins to usher her back to the seats.  
She looks to see where the screaming for everyone to stay back, and can see a man speaking to Professor Snape. Just as she makes it out of the hearing range of their conversation she hears, “A boy has just been killed.”

She is stunned by this and almost froze in place, tripping up the stairs. She gets caught by a pair of hands whose wrists were covered in a pink jacket. She looks up and of course, it was Granger who caught her. Vixen quickly moves backward as both she and Granger begin to get flustered.  
She gives her a simple thank you and rushes back to her housemates.

She spots Blaise first, the other Slytherins still looking down at all the commotion caused in the past few minutes. She grabs on to his sleeve and pulls him in close, “Blaise, we need to get back to the common room now. Tell everyone it is an emergency meeting.”

She leaves the stadium with that, hurrying into the castle wanting to get to the common room to set up an area for them to discuss.

She rushes to the door and goes “Salazar.” She looks around the room and spots an open place by the fireplace, she moves chairs from around the room and places them in a semicircle. 

She then goes, “Accio Curtain.” The curtain goes flying from across the room and into her arms, she uses a levitating charm to get it to hang from the ceiling. She walks around the newly formed area she just created and made sure there were no gaps so that no one can look in on what was going to happen inside.

Right as she finished her classmates walked in.  
Lorna is the first to speak, always curious, “Vixen what is this about?”  
“I’ll tell you once we’re inside. Go get seated, I’m going to grab a few things.”

She watches as they begin to head inside of the little tent-like area. Once they’re inside she goes to her shared dorm room and opens her trunk.  
She grabs out the parchment where they wrote their rules and a box of chocolate frogs.

Once inside she sets the things in her hands down, looks around, and casts a Muffliato just in case. She sits in the chair that is facing everyone else and plops down with a sigh

“Well, that’s not what I thought today would end,” Vixen says while putting her hair in a very messy ponytail. 

“What happened down there Vixen,” Pansy asks

“I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think Voldemort is back.”

When she says this no one says anything, just looking around at each other or in Malfoy’s case, looking at the ground.

“Look I only wanted to hold this meeting because if he is back, it’s going to be trouble for us. We don’t know when he’s going to attack. But when he does, and he will, we’re going to have to choose sides. This is nothing like we have faced before guys, we could be cutting ties with our families over what’s going to happen.”

“What else are we going to do? If our parents want us to join he-who-shall-not-be-named forces, we have to. No one is going to help us,” Malfoy says.

“I will. My parents didn’t join the ranks of that monster, they are purebloods trust me, but never to the extent where they believed the war was needed.” She puts her hands together, interlocking her fingers, taking a deep breath.

“I just don’t want to see anyone of you in Azkaban if this goes the wrong way, or even dead. So trust me when I say this, you can come to me and I’ll make sure you’re safe. However, if you truly believe in what Voldemort says, you can go with him but this is where we cut ties. The rules we established will no longer apply, so make a decision.” 

Vixen sits there in silence, waiting for one of them to say something, move, something. Vixen was slightly expecting this person to stand up and say something 

“I can’t leave my family behind like that, if they ask me to do something I will abide by it. I don’t understand why you can’t see that Vixen.” Lorna says.

“Well, this is where our roads end Cross, I can’t have loyalties to someone who would work with Voldemort.”  
  
“Why? That muggle-born? What’s her name Granger? Wonder what your mother would say if they knew how much you looked at her?”  
“Watch your mouth Cross, you’re speaking on things you know nothing of.”  
“I know enough to warrant a response from you. This is ridiculous, I don’t understand how you guys can sit around and follow her lead. I’m out.”

With that she makes her leave out through the curtains. It goes back quiet for a second, and then three more people get up and leave with her, Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode.

She watches as they leave and wait until they have completely left the area, “Well that went better than expected,” She said with a chuckle.

She looks at Malfoy and kicks her feet his way to gain his attention, “Are you going to leave too?”

He looks up and stares her in the eyes, “Are you 100% sure you could keep me safe if I left my parents?”

“I’ll put my life on the line if it means keeping you guys away from that dark path.”

With that he sits up fully, having been sat with his chest between his legs, “Okay then I’m staying. I know I can’t promise a secure place to stay, but I will protect you as well.”

Vixen gets up from her seat and sits next to Blaise, feeling the need to get a hug and sleep fall onto her like a rushing river. He throws his arm over her shoulders once she does sit next to him, “You can sleep, I’ll carry you up the stairs.”

With that she lets the stress of the past hour and a half go and succumbs to the warmth of sleep.

In the morning, the great hall is quiet, as all the students watch as Professor Dumbledore sits at the front. He speaks about the death of Cedric Diggory and confirms her suspicions, that Voldermort is not only the person who killed Cedric but has also returned to the wizarding world. 

The students take this news with a range of emotions, but there is one thing that is for sure there is a change coming to the world.

After the news this morning the students see of the other schools, Vixen stands off to the side watching as many students say goodbye to the friends they made this year. She looks at the school with a small smile, thinking about how fast this year has gone. It has been quite the year, one that will probably never be forgotten.

As she heads to the entrance to leave with the others she hears “Hermione go talk to her.” “Yeah Hermione, all you have done is talk about her, go make amends or something.”  
She continues her walk, not wanting to be there for whatever stupidity was going to happen.

“Wait! Vixen, please wait.” Granger yells

Vixen stops right in her tracks and spins on her heels to Granger jog up to her, “What could you possibly want with me, Granger.” She gives her a slight glare, relaxing a bit when she sees how sheepish she looks.

“I want to apologize.”

“Apologize for what, you gave your reasons as to why you didn’t want to be friends with me. Albeit foolish reasons, they are yours to make. I'm not going to hold it against you.”

“You’re right they are foolish reasons, I don’t know you and I made an assumption of your character based on past experiences with others of your house. I’m not trying to justify my reasoning, but I’m not the type to just trust people anymore.”

“Well, I accept your apology, Granger. Have a great break.” With that Vixen turns to leave again.  
“Wait!”

“What is it now?” She says with a slight smile

“Can- I-” Hermione sighs at, Vixen realizing she’s getting flustered. 

“Can I send you owls over the break?”

Vixen tilts her head for a second, and then her eyes widen in shock, “Are you being serious right now?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I would love that, yeah it’s completely fine if you send me owls over break, amazing one might say, that would make my day if you-”

“Vixen let’s go, your dad isn’t going to like it if you continue to make him wait.”  
She interrupted by Blaise, who was coming over to her house tonight (he was helping her clean in the greenhouse).

“Ah yeah, I should get going. I’ll hear from you soon.”

With that, she gives her a wave and rushes to Blaise. 

“Now what was that all about.”

“I’ll tell you later, I’m still processing it myself.”

Laying in her bed Vixen rolls over onto her back and stares at her ceiling sighing. She’s bored, she can’t do anything in the greenhouse as her plants are still growing, she can’t go into the library to read up on her magic as her mother is in the home. She lays on her back when she hears someone calling her name.  
“Valery! Val please there is mail here for you.”  
It was her father, thankfully.

She jumps up and rushes down the stairs, when she gets down to the living room she sees her father sitting in the chair near the fireplace.  
“The mail is on the coffee table.”

“Thank you father,” she moves to the coffee table and bends over to grab the packages. She notices that there are two packages, one much smaller than the other, and then an envelope. She doesn’t read who they are from, wanting to do so in her own room. When she turns around, she jumps startled. Her mother was standing right behind her.

This is something she wanted to avoid, mother won’t do anything in front of her father but that won’t stop her from asking questions.

“Who’s sending you mail?”

“Oh, I haven’t checked.”  
She takes the envelope from off the top of the box and reads who it was from.

“Who is Helga Gaunt?” she asks squinting her eyes at Vixen

“That’s someone who I found in a book at school, she writes about Herbology and how it can be used to study potions. It’s fascinating; I had some questions to ask her to see if she could help me with some plants I’m studying.”

Her mother looks at her, she goes to ask another question but is stopped by my father.

“Leave her be, Vixen you can go.”  
“Thank you father, have a good evening.”

Vixen walks around her mother, who just stood there watching as Vixen walks out of the room.

She walks up to her room and quietly closes the door to her room and locks it. She sets the packages on her bed and sits next to them, and opens the envelope first. She reads over the letter quickly and grabs her wand to uncode the letter. Vixen had asked Hermione to write the letter but to spell it so that if read by her mother it would look like a letter about Herbology.  
Once uncoded she begins to read

> _Dear Vixen,  
>  I hope you are doing well when this reaches you. I’ve enjoyed sending letters to you over the break. It has been nice being able to get to know you and also pick at your brain for spells. This letter will be short as I am leaving for the Weasley’s home soon, so I have to pack. But I did attach a gift for you, I’ve been practicing a charm and made you a little something. I have a matching one so I can’t wait to see you with it.  
>  Until next time,  
>  Hermione  
>  _

Vixen smiles at this letter and places it down. She then picks up the smaller box and slips it open. She looks inside and notices that there is a bag. She takes the bag out and looks at it from all sides; the bag is a bit bigger than her own hand. The bag was colored green and silver with red beads. She then looks at it from the inside and puts her hand inside, when she does she realizes that more of her hand fits inside of the bag than expected. She then realizes what kind of bag it was, it was a bag charmed with an extension charm. Looking at the bag Vixen smiles at it, excited to put things inside.

She places the letter and both the bag on the nightstand. Looking back at her bed she looks at the bigger box, about the size of a large textbook. She picks it up and shakes it a bit, she hears and feels something hitting the sides of the box. ‘So whatever is in the box is about the same size, maybe a book?’ She thinks.

She opens the box and her suspicions are confirmed, inside was a book titled ‘The Undergrove Family’. Vixen tilts her head at this, ‘Why would someone send me a book.’ She looks back at the now-empty box to see who sent it, but there was no name.

She rotates the book in her hands, noting that the cover has a tree that is slightly raised. The tree itself has a green-gold color shift with branches that reach the top of the book. She decides to read the book, curiosity getting to the best of her.

She opens the book and sees that on the first page there is someone’s handwriting that says,  
_To my missing daughter, I’m still looking for you. Hoping that you are still okay._

She continues to read through the book going to the table of context. The book is 94 pages long.

**Ancient Magic**  
This book is part of a series of books on ancient families. To start off we would like to speak on ancient magics.  
To give a brief summary there are three main types of magic. These magic types came from three families: Primrose, Anansi, and Gazini all 1000 years old. From these families there was a mix of the magic that came from the families, some sparking up with two types or some aspects of one.  
Around 100 years later after the formation of these families, a new family was formed. A family more powerful than the original three families. This family is known as the Undergrove’s, the Undergrove’s have members that can practice nature, illusion, and blood magic.

The chapter continues to explain more about the families and types of magic. Vixen decides to continue the chapter already knowing about this from previous books.

**The Undergrove’s**  
The Undergrove family has distant relations to the Primrose family, with the first member of the family coming from this family. Though they can practice all three types of magic, this close tie to the Primrose family allows them to be more attuned with nature.  
This family is extremely close-knit and only marries people who can practice two types of magic.  
There was never an instance where a member from the Undergrove family married or had a child with a regular magic practitioner. This was kept true until 1976.

In 1986 a daughter of the Undergrove’s, Victoria Undergrove (1956), was a powerful witch. She was loved by those around her, and always had a fire inside of her. At the age of 20 however, is where things changed for Victoria. She met a wizard, yet to be identified, who she dated in secret for four years. How those two met is still unknown, but what happens from this coupling is something that shook the family.  
  
Victoria had a child with this wizard, something that has never happened in the many generations of this family. Victoria tried to keep this child a secret (the child being born sometime in the spring of 1980), but only after a year, the child was found out. Her family was taken aback by this and decided that the only way to solve this was by disowning Victoria and sending the child away.  


Neither Victoria nor the child has been seen since.

Vixen stops reading there too shocked to process what she has read.  
How could someone just kick their own flesh and blood out like that, Vixen wonders?  
  
Vixen wonders if there is a picture of the family wanting to see how they looked. She flipped through the pages until she reached the back of the book where a picture of a group of people resides, it's a moving picture in which it seems in the last minute they were trying to look at the camera. The image was taken in 1989 Christmas, Vixen realizes that Victoria would’ve been about 4-5 months pregnant.  
  
On the right side of the book is a list of names, all with the last name Undergrove. Vixen looks down the list until she sees ‘Victoria Undergrove (1956) bottom left’.  
  
She looks at the image where directed and sees a woman with reddish-brown skin, and alabaster hair that flows down her shoulder in tight curls. (Later Vixen will note that her hair is probably brighter and made duller by the picture quality).  
  
In the moving picture Victoria is looking down at her stomach with her hand on her stomach, a woman above her (her mother) moves her head up to face the camera. Once looking at the camera she smiles at the camera.

Vixen looks at the picture for a few more seconds and decides to close the book. She stands up and stretches her arms above her head and sighs a bit.  
She looks at the time and notes that dinner will start in about 3 hours, and the Zabini’s are coming over. She has convinced her parents to let Blaise stay over, in separate rooms of course even though nothing would’ve happened. She just needs someone to rant to and Blaise is her go-to person to trust. She decides on taking a shower first and then getting ready for dinner later. She’ll clean up the mess in her room with Blaise later on.


	9. Agape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is pronounced AH-gah-peh and it means unconditional love :)

It is the start of the school year, Hermione and Vixen are sitting in a small cove of a library. The area shared by the two of them as a little secret. This little cove is something that Hermione found, and used as a hideaway place. The little cove like area is pretty far back in the library, hardly any people come back here.  
The entrance is just an opening to the rest of the library. It is a square shaped place, with three walls being covered by bookshelves, the roof under the stairs with dark oak planks.

Here Hermione and Vixen were studying different spells that they could be on the O.W.L.S this year, Vixen has been looking forward to studying for this exam.

“I was reading on a charm that I believe slows down how fast something is moving. Say someone uses Ascendio on a friend, or you’re falling from somewhere try using Arresto Momentum. I’ve been practicing glass balls that I throw into the air and I’ve gotten to slowing them down where they no longer break completely.” Vixen says while moving her hand and grand gestures in front of her.

Hermione swears she’s listening to the things Vixen is telling her but she can’t get her mind off of the impending danger that is coming to the Wizarding world.  
Vixen stops speaking when she notices Hermione isn’t talking to her or even paying attention. She looks at Hermione and notices her leg has been bouncing in a quick movement, and how she has been biting her lip for a few minutes now.

Vixen began to call out her name in a soft tone, but she doesn’t notice Vixen calling her name, so lost in her mind.

“-mione. Hermione are you okay?”

Hermione blinks her eyes a few times trying to bring herself back to the conversation.  
Vixen sighs and looks around the little area around them. When she realizes they are alone, she closes the book in front of her.

Vixen scoots her chair back a bit and tells Hermione, “I want to show you something so trust me okay.”  
Hermione looks at her a bit confused, she still nods her head at Vixen.

Vixen grabs her hands and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. 

Hermione watches her for about a moment when something happens. Hermione watches as the small cove around them materializes into another room. 

On the bookshelf, is where it starts to form where a weirdly shaped blob begins to expand around them. The edge of the blob had a goldish color, moving around them both. Hermione moves her head around to watch it consume the ceiling and the floor around them.

She watches in awe as they sit in a newly formed room. On the wall, herbs are hanging and drying. There are balls of lights ranging in size ━from about the size of her palm to the size of her pinky finger━ lighting up the room. She notices that there are two tables across from them, holding the books they were reading from. On the wall next to them was a window looking out to a night sky where stars are lighting up the sky, with shooting stars flying across.  
“H-how did you do this?”

“It’s a long story best saved for another day,” Vixen says with a small smile.

“Where are we?”

Vixen stands up from her seat still holding Hermione’s hand, causing her to get up as well.  
She walks them to the window that was a few feet from them. Once there they look out to the window together, settling into a comfortable silence.  
They don’t say anything for a few minutes, letting go of the problems of the real world.  
Vixen squeezes at their hands, they don’t have their fingers intertwined but still the comfort Vixen was trying to pass was there. Hermione looks from the window and stares at Vixen,

“I like to come here sometimes when I’m stressed. When I need an escape, or just to relax.”

Hermione nods her head at this, “It’s nice of you to bring me here.”

“I was wondering something?”

“Yes, what is it Granger?”

“Why is it that you call me ‘Granger’ and not ‘Hermione’?”

“The same reason I guess you call me Vixen, I would like to call you Hermione if you don’t mind.”

“I would love it if you called me Hermione if you let me call you Valery.”

“Then I guess we have come to an agreement on this.”

With that Vixen moves to intertwine their fingers together, and moves a bit closer to Hermione.

Hermione and Vixen don’t say anything after this for a moment until Hermione breaks their gaze and smiles a bit, “Now can you tell me the long story of how you made this place.”

Vixen chuckles at this and begins telling her about her magic.

Hermione stares at her while she speaks, she lets her graze follow Vixen’s eyes as she looks at Hermione. Vixen realizes how her eyes start to wrinkle at the outer corners. She watches as pupils start to dilate and allow for the golden-brown in her eyes to stand out more, her eyes seeming to sparkle. She stops focusing on her eyes, flushing a bit and begins actively listening to her.

“... and so then I wondered if I could expand my illusions on to other people as well. I tried with Blaise but it didn’t really work as well. I’ve read that I could expand illusions as a means of defense onto others.”

Hermione automatically begins asking questions to Vixen about her magic, “So you can do nature and illusion magic? Is there a way that you can intertwine both of them at once? Also is there any other kinds of magic or is there only those-”

Vixen laughs at the bombardment of questions Hermione asks her, “Slow your roll Hermione, one question at a time yeah?”

Hermione flushes noticing that she was asking so many questions, “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize, now I haven’t yet to try both at the same time because I’m waiting to get a good enough standing in them both,”

“I would like to see your nature magic one day if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course. Yes there is another type of magic, it’s blood magic. I don’t know if I can do that kind of magic.”

“How come?”

“Well that’s because in ancient magic, there are these four main families. The first three oldest are nature, illusion, and blood magic. The other is a combination of all three. There are some people that can practice two types of magic, so I’m assuming that I can only do those two.”

“Did your parents not teach you about your magic?”

Vixen looks away for a second and looks out of the window. There is no answer for a few seconds, making Hermione start to backtrack.

“You don’t have to answer, I don’t mean to press.”

“No, it's fine. It’s just that-”

Vixen lets out a small sigh and rolls her shoulders.  
“I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, especially my mother. I’ve asked about it before and was told not to press about it anymore. I’ve recently figured some things out, but I need to look into it more so I can get the truth.”

This leaves them back into a silence where they both are looking outside the Window.

After a while, the two go separate ways when Vixen points out that it’s about time that dinner would be starting. Vixen needed to head down to the Slytherin commons to grab a hair tie, she didn’t want to spend dinner moving her hair out of her face. 

As she walks out of her dorm and into the common room she is stopped by someone walking in front of her blocking her path. She stops right before she could collide with them, she steps back a bit realizing who it was.

“Where do you think you’re going Vixie?”

Vixen rolls her eyes, “piss off Cross.”

Cross was standing there with the two others in her little group.

“What’s with the language? Do you kiss your mouth with that mouth?”

Vixen clenches her jaw, taking a deep breath in and out of her nose.  
“Cross, I’m going to give you two seconds to back away from me and stop talking.”

“Or what Vixen? You're going to tell on me to your parents? They don’t care about you, you know that right? You mean nothing to the-”

Before Cross could finish talking Vixen pulls a wand out, pointing it straight at her chest.

“I’m warning you Cross. Back. Up. Now.” Vixen digs her wand into Cross’ chest with each word.

Cross was going to say something else, but before she could Vixen felt someone’s arms go around her waist and push her back. When she gets pushed back by someone, she realizes to be Blaise, takes her spot.

“Move on Cross.”

“Awe look at that little Vixie needs her boyfriend to protect her.”

She says this turning to her little posse, making them laugh.

Blaise sighs at this, “Welp I tried.” He moves away letting Vixen come back into view. 

Vixen sends him a smile as he walks behind her again.

“Well since you don’t know how to listen to Cross, let’s have a duel.”  
When she says that it makes the crowd that formed around them mummers a bit at this.

“We can’t duel inside of the school.” Cross says backing up a bit.

“That’s fine, we can use the room from the duelling club.”

Vixen starts to pull her hair into a ponytail moving her hair out of her face. She then pushes her hand out infront of her, “So are we going to duel or not? Or are you too much of a coward to back up your words.”

Cross looks around the people in the crowd, eyes everywhere put at Vixen.

Vixen gives a hmph, “Exactly what I thought.” 

Vixen was turning around when Cross yelled, “Wait!”

Vixen turns at her smirking, Cross flushes both in embarrassment for yelling and in anger at Vixen.  
“Wait, okay. I’ll duel you. Meet me in the dueling room in 30 minutes.”

With that she walks past Vixen, with her little posse trailing after her.

Vixen gives a little puff of air in the form of a laugh, and moves to the couches. As she walks to the couch she is rushed with questions by Draco and Pansy.

“Are you actually touched in the head, Vixen? Why are you dueling with Cross?”  
“You are going to get in serious trouble you know, like a stupid amount of troulble. Like detentions from Snape kind of-”  
“Draco, Pans, will you please calm down, it's fine.”  
“It is not fine Vixen! It’s a duel, we’re only in our 5th year. We should not be dueling.” Pansy says.  
“She can handle herself just fine Pansy, we all can. Have more faith please.” Blaise says pulling her arm so she can sit down next to them.

They fall into a silence, the group not knowing what to say to pass time.

“Oh!” Vixen gasps, startling the group slightly.  
“Pans, can you be my second? I know nothing is going to happen to me but I just want to follow the rules.”  
“Why me?”  
“Pans, you can be serious. You have a great knack for charms and your defensive spells are good enough to protect yourself.”  
The boys nod in agreement with Vixen.  
“Yeah Pansy, I would choose you as my second in a duel, and make sure to have you by my side in battle.” Draco says.  
These comments from the group make Pansy flush a bit, not used to the praise about her magic.  
“Okay, okay. I’ll be your second Vixen.”  
This causes the boys to give a little whoop, as the fist bump squeezing the girls sitting next to them. Making Vixen look at Pansy as she rolls her eyes, shoving Blaise off of her.

They continue chatting for the next few minutes, when Vixen looks up at the clock and notices the time.  
“We should start heading over, the duel starts soon.”  
She jumps up and does a quick stretch, arms above her head, cracking the bones in her shoulders. She moves her arms down and shakes her hands a bit by her side.  
“Okay, shall we?”

They make their way out of the common room and into the dueling room, where a crowd of people have formed. Vixen notices that many of the people in the crowd aren’t only Slytherin’s. In the small crowd of about 25 there were 7 Gryfindors, three of whom were Hermione, Potter, and Weasley. Hermione makes a face at her, moving her eyes in a certain way as if asking ‘What on earth are you doing?’  
Vixen, not wanting to be seen, slightly shrugs her shoulders in response.  
“Finally look who decided to show up, I thought you were going to wuss out.” Cross says while lifting her chin in the air a bit.  
Vixen just rolls her eyes at her and begins to move into the dueling area.

“I hope you know the rules for dueling?”

“Of course I do, do you think I’m a dunce?”

“Yes I think you’re a complete idiot Cross.”

Cross flares her nose at this comment, “Let’s get this started, you run your mouth too much Vixen.”

“Okay one base rule, no curses that can cause death.”

“I can work with that.”

They walk to their respective areas of the dueling area, the crowd around them watching on two of them with a buzz of anticipation.  
They bow to each other bending over for 5 seconds and coming back up. Onec back up they draw their wands at each other. 

Vixen sends out a _Bombarda_ at Cross which she dodges by moving to the side in a roll, the spell hits the ground where she was standing causing small explosions to go off.

Cross sends out a _Ebublio_ jinx sending a bubble towards her, Vixen see’s this and ducks to the ground letting the bubble pass her. 

Before Vixen could get back up Cross sends an _Immobulus_ at her at the ground, making her roll to the side. 

On the floor she pushes herself up off the ground when she sees Cross go for another spell causing Vixen to send out a _Protego_ blocking another _Immobulus_ Cross sends her way.

Vixen sends a _Rictusempra_ at Cross, causing her to fly back a few meters and fall into uncontrollable laughter. While she laughs on the floor trying to get back up, Vixen walks towards Cross while twirling her wand in her hand.

To finish off the duel she sends out an _expelliarmus_ , causing her wand out of hand. She grabs Cross wands as it flies towards her, and smirks at Cross. 

She sends a _Finite Incantatem_ towards Cross, causing her to stop laughing. 

Cross gives her a ugly sneer to Vixen, “Well played Vixen.”

Vixen gives her a hmph and turns around walking away from Cross. She then bows to the crowd who were watching in excitement. They break out into a roaring applause, with a few “Yeah Vixen” or “Vixen!!” coming here and there.

She’s about to say something when a, “Vixen watch out!” comes from the crowd, she later realizes that it was Hermione who warned her.  
With this warning she turns around quickly seeing Cross pointing her wand at her, getting ready to send out a spell.  
Vixen knew she wouldn’t have enough time to grab her wand out, nor had she had enough practice with wandless magic, so she decided to use her nature magic.

In the pretence of using wandless magic she says, _Herbivicus_. While doing so she focuses her magic to grow vines that wrap around her ankles and pull her to the ground. Cross falls to the ground with a loud thump, screaming on her way down. Once she is on the ground she starts to kick out and scratch at the vines entrapping her.

She looks up at Vixen, who stands at the other end of the dueling area, “Let me out you loon!”

“No, you are a coward. Who attacks someone behind their back because they lost a duel? Let yourself out.”

Vixen walks away from this scene, wanting to head to dinner, she is followed by Blaise, Draco and Pansy.

“Vixen that was so cool, where did you learn to duel like that?”

“My father. He wanted to ensure that I could protect myself.”

They continue to ask her about the spells she used, and the duel itself as they walk to the Great Hall. Before they could get there, the group was stopped by someone, “Hey, wait up!”

The group stops and turns around to see who it was, it was Hermione, Potter and Weasley.

“That was an amazing duel. Valery, you have to tell me how you did that, what books did you read?”

“Hermione, I’ll tell you everything tomorrow I want dinner.”

“Valery?” Draco asks in a teasing tone towards Vixen

“Hermione?” Potter asks in a similar tone.  
This causes the two to stop smirking and look at each other with wide eyes, making eye contact they both blush and look away.  
Vixen and Hermione look at each other and shake their head,”Okay let’s go I’m going to starve to death.”

“Me too.”

Vixen looks at Weasley and laughs a bit, “What do you think they are going to have today?”  
“I honestly don’t care as long as it isn’t anything with sweet potatoes.”  
“Right those things are disgusting.”

The group continues to talk and walk to the Great Hall. Draco and Potter being the farthest in the back, having a conversation looking to be a bit intense.  
Vixen puts in the back of her head to ask him what they’d talked about. 

The next day the students are sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts taught by Professor Umbridge. Vixen remembers seeing her in the news once, she works for the Ministry. Vixen wonders why they would send her into teaching this class. Knowing that there underneath the surface Vixen starts to form a plan in her head to figure what that is.

As Vixen sits in the seat across the aisle from Potter and next to Blaise. She’s looking through the book that was handed to her by the student in front of her.  
She notices that in the book there aren’t any spells, in the way that most books teach you how to perform spells. Looking up she was going to raise her hand to ask why this was. She saw Hermione already with her hand up, hopefully going to ask what Vixen is thinking about.  
Umbridge instead continues working at her desk and ignores Hermione’s raised hand. This continues on for a few more seconds where Umbridge sighs and gives a simple, “Yes?”

“I wanted to know something about your course aims.”

“Well, they should be well explained in the text.”

“No, I’m referring to how the text mentions nothing about actually doing spells.”

Umbridge laughs at this, as if mentioning doing actual is absurd, “Why would there be the need to use the spells that you read from this class?”

“Isn’t the whole point of this class to teach up practical application?”  
“Miss Granger, this class has been approved by the Ministry. You don’t happen to work for the Ministry?”

“No, but Professor-”

“Then there is no need for you to place your input into how this class is taught. The theory should be enough, leaving us with a safer environment.”

“But what about our O.W.L.S, how can only knowing the theory help us pass our exams?”

This is when Potter jumps into the conversation, “How will theory do us any good in the real world?”

“What on earth would you need these spells for out in the real world Mister Potter?” 

"There are actual real dangers that wait for us outside of this class room."  
In the same grating voice of hers she continues with, "There is nothing out there, dear. Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourself?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe Lord Voldemort." 

The class falls into a silence with this, a few of the students whispering to each other.

She then tells the class that there is no dark wizard out to get them, this is where Vixen had to disagree.  
She can’t outright say that the Dark Lord isn’t back, there is a reason that the Ministry sent her in. Vixen wants to get to the bottom of that exact reason.

"Professor?" She ques with her arm raised, Vixen takes Umbridge staring at her as a sign to start talking.  
"If we are learning just the theoretical stuff, how will we ever learn to apply it when the time comes? Better yet, why can't we just practice magic? Isn't that what we came to school to learn?"  
"I don't understand why you're questioning what I have told you, the min-"  
"Why can't you tell me why we can't practice the spells in class? I don't understand what harm comes from that."  
"I don't have to explain my reasoning behind why-"  
Potter then buts in, "So you would rather us have blinding trust in why you're cutting our education on life saving information because why? The Ministry says so?"

"Your lives aren't in danger Mr. Potter," she says walking down the aisle between the desks.

"Well I beg to differ."

"I also disagree Professor, our lives could be in danger at any given moment, and not only by some dark wizard."

“Enough! The both of you, a week worth of detentions!”

She picks up a quill from her desk and begins to write on some parchments. She hands them one to each of us after she finishes writing on them and goes, “Here that goes to your head of House.”

Vixen rolls her eyes at this, nothing she said warranted her needing to see her after class. She heads back to her desk and begins to grab her things. She walks to the door with Potter in tow, pulling it open and walking out.

While walking to the stairs Potter clears his throat more than once. Vixen sighs, walks to a wall and leans on it, facing Potter now, “What do you want?”

“Why did you say all of that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The stuff you were telling Professor Umbridge?”

“Because I had a valid argument about the class materials, why else would I say something?”

“I don’t know, to impress Hermione?”

She rolls her eyes at him and pushes herself off the wall moving closer to him, she looks around before goes, “Look Potter, I believe you.”

“About what?”

“About Voldermort, I know that the press is trying to make you look like a loony bin. I’ve seen the way you’ve been treated by people in this school even though you’re the supposed savior. That aside I believe when you say that he’s back.”

“Oh.”

“What did you think, that me being in a house with kids whose parents are death eaters, that I wouldn’t know?”

She doesn’t get anything back in response so she takes that as an answer, “Look I have to go give this to Snape so I’ll see you at detention.”

She then walks away from him and heads into Snape's classroom. As she pushes the door open, the students turn and look at her. She notes that they’re first-years, when the Slytherins notice that it's her they quickly look away, they’ve been scared of her ever since they saw her go off on Blaise one morning for waking up late.

Snapes looks up from whatever he was working on at his desk, stands up and walks over to me. Once he gets a near me he goes, “What are you here for?”

Instead of verbally answering him she just hands him the parchment. He takes it and she watches as he reads over it, and then looks back up at her.  
“You disagreed with what is being taught in your class.”  
“No I disagreed with how it’s being taught, she’s not letting us use magic.”  
“You can’t publicly disagree with a Professor, especially her she has been sent here by the Ministry. She could very well be telling the Minster everything that happens in this school, so you must learn to not argue with her.”  
“If I say I’ll stop arguing with her can I spend detention here?”  
He looks at Vixen for a few seconds, to which she looks back at him with the same stoic face. After a while he stops staring and sighs, “Yes you can serve your detention here.”  
She gives a small smile at this and does a small fist pump by her side.  
He notices this and sighs again, “Okay get out of my classroom, I want you here after dinner.”

They walk to her office together, making a bit of small talk with each other. When they finally make it to her office, they fall silent.

With that she leaves the room and decides on heading to the library for the remainder of this class period.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, sorry it took so long for me to write it. Leave comments about your though on the chapter <3.


	10. Dolos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg I'm so sorry that this took so long to update, I had WiFi problems halfway through last week and then lost motivation it was a mess.

The sound of bickering can be heard from inside the owlery. Inside there are seven people: Vixen, Hermione, Blaise, Harry, Draco, Ron, and Pansy.  
“Potter move your big head, anyone could see it from the entrance.”

“Well, how about you shut your big mouth, you’re probably bringing attention to us.”

The seven of them have been hanging out more recently due to how much they get along.  
“Can the both of you shut up, your bickering is going to get us caught. You two sound like an old couple,” Pansy tells them.  
Both of them turned around, their bubble bursting, they look at Pansy and then back at each other and start blushing. They give out mumbles of something that sounds like, “We do not sound like a couple.”

Vixen and Hermione, who are standing the farthest from the group, look at them and laugh a bit.  
“When do you think they’ll get together?”

“No time soon, Draco is so oblivious to other people’s feelings.”

“So is Harry.”

The two of them fall into silence, enjoying being in each other presence. They don’t get to spend a lot of time together but when they do they try and make the of it. As they stand there waiting for an owl to come, Vixen notices that Hermione is shivering slightly.  
“Are you cold?”

“A bit, yeah.”

Vixen takes off her scarf and moves closer to her, she starts to wrap around Hermione’s neck, “Next time don’t forget to bring a scarf, you’ll catch a cold with the way temperatures are dropping.”  
She looks up from her neck and into her face, Hermione staring right back at her. They stare at each other until Hermione looks down at her hands. She then grabs her hands telling her, “You’re one to talk you don’t have any gloves on.” She wraps both of her hands around Vixen’s hands, “Your hands a so small, it’s cute.”

Vixen splutters at this, “My hands are not small, you just have bigger hands.”

“You have small hands, Val you have to stop denying it,” Blaise says.

They both look away from each other realizing that the group has gotten closer to them.  
They drop their hands, still holding them at their sides.  
“My hands aren’t small you all have freakishly large hands, leave me and my normal-sized hands be.”

“It’s still cute,” Hermione says, pushing her shoulder a bit.

Vixen was going to say something, but the sound of an owl flying in stops her.  
“Finally, hurry and get the stuff so we can go,” Draco says

Vixen had the group waiting because she wanted to grab her mail earlier, so she didn’t have to come when it’s colder. She lets go of Hermione’s hands and goes to the owl with the mail. When she gets there the owl is holding a small box and an envelope. Vixen was expecting the envelope, as her father was supposed to be writing here today; The package however was not something she expected, she hadn’t ordered anything.  
“What did you order something Val?”

“I haven’t ordered anything, it’s probably from my father.”

“Well open it, you can toss the box so you don’t have to carry it all day.”

She hands the envelope to Blasie to hold for her, she begins to tear open the box. The contents inside the box are covered by wrapping paper. As she begins to move it around she sees a bright blue flower. She takes the flower out of the box to get a better look; the flower is layered with petals, the flower being about the size of her two hands. The inside of the flower petals was covered by this sparkling material, color-shifting from green to blue when she moves the flower.  
“Wow, your father got you that?” Ron asked.

“I don’t think this is from my father.” Looking at the flower in a trance

“How could you know that?” Harry buts into the conversation.

“It doesn’t feel like his magic.” She says. When she is answered with silence, she looks away from the flower and at everyone.

They’re just staring at her in confusion, not understanding what that means.

“Oh, whenever you do magic on an object it leaves a signature behind. I’m pretty sure I can detect it because of my magic and how it interacts with yours.”

With that, they all begin to ask questions, “How does my magic feel?” “You can do that for everyone?” “Who do you think sent the flower then?”

Vixen blinks at them, “Okay calm down everyone. Everyone has different magic signatures I just realized that I can tell the difference between everyone. It’s difficult to describe it, but it’s basically like different vibes or wavelengths. I can tell all of your magic apart, it’s quite strange actually. I’m trying to see if I can use it to tell when someone is around me.”

She looks back at the flower, “This however I don’t know who this from. It has more than one person signature on it, one of them feels familiar.”

She looks at Blasie talking to him, “Do you remember that strange book I got during the summer? The one I told you about?”  
He nods.  
“It has the same signature on it, it stands out from the other one. Like they did something ontop of the other person’s magic.”

She places it back in the box, “Well that’s a mystery.”

“Can we discuss the flower later? I’m going to starve to death.”

“You’re always going to “starve to death” Ronald.”

“Piss of Blaise, just because you don’t eat as much doesn’t mean you judge me.”

“It’s not judgment, just observation.” He says smirking.

“You two give it a rest, let’s go.”

They leave the owlery together but separate into their groups when they get inside. Vixen sightly waves at Hermione, she gets a smile back.

The group later meets up in the library after classes are finished. Hermione, Ron, Blaise, and Pansy are debating what is the best kind of dessert. Vixen is sightly paying attention to the conversation, smiling every so often when something funny is said. Harry is napping on the table arms folded with his head resting on them; Harry has been losing sleep at night so him being tired is a new occurrence. 

“Do you think we could sneak food into the library, I don’t feel like sitting in the Great Hall.”

“What is with you and wanting to break rules all the time Ronald?”

“What is with you and wanting to be a stickler for rules Zabini?”

“Can you two stop bickering? Let’s just get the food from the kitchen, the elves like me.” Hermione buts in.

They all stand up Hermione looks back at the two, “Are you coming with?”

“No, I’ll stay here just in case he wakes up.”

“Okay, we’ll grab you guys something.”

With that, she leaves with the group leaving Vixen and Harry by themselves.  
After a few minutes pass, Vixen sees out of the corner of her eye that Harry is shifting around a bit. He stops moving around, but he then starts to mumble in his sleep. She looks at him in full view this time and notices that he has sweat on his face.  
“Don’t touch him.” He shifts a bit more when he says this, his brow creasing more.

Not wanting to startle him awake she lightly says, “Harry.”  
“No, don’t touch him. Leave him alone.”

She sighs and lightly touches his shoulder, nudging him a bit. This action causes him to spring up wand in hand, eye frantic. Vixen automatically throws her hands up, and starts to calm speak to him not wanting to startle him even more, “Harry, it’s okay you’re in Hogwarts. No one is here to hurt you, it’s okay to put your wand down.”

He starts to relax a bit putting his wand around, “I’m sorry for doing that.”

“Don’t apologize, I’m the one who startled you. Don’t apologize for being afraid, you have been through way more than most of us could ever handle.”

“Yeah, but I could’ve done more to prevent this. To help keep Cedric alive, if I was faster then maybe he wouldn’t have gotten to the cup. Maybe if I didn’t save him from the maze he would still be alive. I-”

“Harry, stop.”

When he stops talking she continues, “None of this is your fault. No, don’t interrupt me. This isn’t your fault, you didn’t ask for this life, you didn’t ask to be chased by a mad man since you were a child. Don’t blame the choices of others on yourself, you didn’t kill Cedric.”  
He doesn’t answer her back so she says, “Listen I’m not going to tell you to talk to me but please talk to someone. It might be hard to trust people but you still have people behind you.”  
They stop talking after this, just basking in each other’s presence.

When the others come back the room becomes more lively. The two of them putting the conversation in the back of their heads, joining in on the fun of the conversation.

Hermione sits next to her placing a plate in front of her, “I didn’t know what you liked so I got you the same thing that I got.”  
“It’s fine thank you.”  
They all eat in silence making conversation every so often.

After they have all finished eating, plates are stacked on top of each other.  
Vixen sits there and watches them talk and laugh with each other. She glances over at Harry, who looks a bit happier and has a great idea.

“I have an idea.”

“Yeah what is it?” Hermione is the one to respond to her, the others just tuning in.

“Since you-know-who is back, I was thinking of a way for us to be able to let the others know that we’re in danger. Nothing too complicated, but something we can all remember.”

“How about _baubillious_?”

“The charm that shoots white sparks from the wand?”

“Sounds a bit dirty if you asked me.”

“Grow up Ronald,” both Hermione and Blaise say, Blaise however laughs with him after he says it.

“I think we need something that won’t be too noticeable, if we are going to need it we don’t need others seeing it.” Harry chimes in.

“I read somewhere that you can use Patronus’ to send messages, maybe we can try that.”

“That is the first smart thing you’ve said all day Ronald, I’m truly proud of you.” Blaise teases.

“Oh shove off.”

As they start to bicker, Vixen just chuckles at them and writes the idea down. “We will have to look into it, but I think it might work.”

They sit there for a little while longer, talking about other ideas they could use. When it is time to head out and to bed, the others take the plates while Hermione and Vixen stay back to clean up the books. They do so in relative silence, letting the sound of their robes shuffling drown the small area. 

“You know that’s the calmest I’ve seen Harry in a while, the whole emergency charm idea seemed to put him at ease for a moment.”

“Honestly Hermione I just think one of his problems is that he is afraid of losing people, he has had so much taken away from him so I thought this is one thing I could do to help our precious savior.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that, you know it makes him flustered.”

“I know that’s why I give all of my compliments to you, it makes you so unbelievably flustered. It’s cute so don’t worry.”

Hermione doesn’t say anything in response, so Vixen looks up from her pile of books and realizes she’s trying to fight off a smile.

“Like right now, whenever I call you cute it makes your cheeks light up it’s truly amazing. Do you blush like this when anyone calls you cute or is it just me?”

Hermione mumbles something and Vixen breaks out into a large smile. Moving closer she goes, “Can you repeat that again I couldn’t quite hear you.”

“It’s just you.”

Vixen hums at this her face a few inches away from Hermione’s, who is looking down at the table. Vixen grabs one of her hands and squeezes it a bit, bring Hermione’s attention back up to her face.

“What else is just for me?”

They stare at each other, eyes locked and not moving from the other gaze. As they begin to lean into each other, Vixen’s gaze drops to Hermione’s lips she notes how pink they are and the little cupids bow she has at the top lip. She then sees Hermione closes her eyes and moves in a bit more, she then does the same. They were probably a few inches from each other when a loud bang makes them jump back. Hermione’s eyes widen when she realizes what just happened, she quickly grabs her belongings and speeds out of the little area yelling a ‘Goodnight’ as she leaves.

Vixen slightly chuckles at this watching as her figure recedes into the distance, she runs her hands through her thick hair and grabs her books. She then also leaves the library. 

As fall continued to get colder, Vixen can be seen walking down the staircase, bag in hand. She has her thick curls pulled back into a low ponytail, out of its cloud-like shape state; she usually has it like this when she is working with potions but she left a bit early because Professor Snape had to leave for emergency business. As she walks down the hallway and to the greenhouse to speak to Professor Sprout. She wanted to talk to her about the flower she had gotten in the mail, wanting to see if she can gain more information. Walking down the corridor on the way to the greenhouses she feels her hand get pulled on. She is pulled to the side and then walked the other way, this causes her to let out a loud yelp. She quickly realizes who it is that is pulling her, “Granger you mad, what are you doing?”

“I need your help with something, I’ve already asked Harry and Ron to meet me there.”

“What are we doing?”

“I’ll explain it to you when we get there.”

They continue to walk, and when they get to the gates of the school she lets go of her hand, she gives her a sheepish smile in response. As they walk out of the school gate of the school and into Hogmead Harry and Ron show up asking Hermione where she was going. When she doesn’t answer them Vixen looks at them and shrugs her shoulders at them. They push forward and continue to walk ahead, Vixen falls behind the group watching their surroundings as they walk. The group continues to walk through the crowd of people until Hermione stops the group at a shaggy-looking pub. 

"Here we are."

"'The Hog's Head'?"

She just continues walking inside saying, "I'll explain when we get inside."

They open the door and move inside, inside of the pub is dimly lit and filled with other Hogwarts students. Vixen notes that none of them are Slytherins and inwardly sighs, ‘This is going to be fun.’ she thinks.

"Hermione, what are we doing here?"

She turns her head back to him and tells him, "I told everyone here about my idea that I had about Defense Against the Dark Arts."

She sits down on a chair in the pub, Harry and Ron follow her continuing the conversation.  
"The one about teaching ourselves?"

She doesn't answer him because two of the people from the crowd start speaking.  
They say something that Vixen doesn't pay attention to, she instead looks around at the people there. Most of them are Gryffindors, the rest being Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, they range in what year they are in. She continues to make observations of the group until Hermione gets everyone's attention. 

"Hi everyone, so we're all here today because I thought it would be a good idea to talk about wanting to teach ourselves Defense Against the Dark Arts." She shuffles in her seats a bit and continues, "We're not learning anything from the rubbish that Umbridge is trying to teach us."  
One of the Weasley twins shouts out in agreement.

"This will not only help us learn and prepare for our O.W.L.s, but it will also, more importantly, help us protect ourselves from the dangers out there, like... Lord Voldemort."

When she says this name many of the people in the crowd flinch in fear. She takes a deep breath, her face looking exhilarated.

Harry raises his eyebrows a bit, "That's the first time you've said his name."  
She just gives him a pleased smile.

"You really think that You-Know-Who's actually back?" says someone from the crowd.  
"Dumbledore thinks he's back," the other Weasley twin says.  
"He only thinks that because he's going off of Harry's word," another member of the crowd says.

"If you didn't believe in what Dumbledore said then you wouldn't be here right now would you?' Hermione asks the crowd.

"Look, fighting Voldemort isn't the only purpose we want to start this, so please give this a chance."

When no one says anything in response, making the air around them tense, she clears her throat and starts talking again.

"Okay, so now that's that is over, we need a teacher if we're going to do this the right way."

Longbottom speaks up, "But we are students, we don't have enough experience."

"Well there is someone in here who does." says the Weasley girl. She looks over at Harry who looks back at her confused.

"Me?"

"How is Potter qualified for this?"

"Well yeah you have the most experience when it comes to DADA,” she continues 

"The portraits in the school have said that you killed a Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets," one of the girls from the crowd says

"Er... yeah."

This causes a slight gasp in the crowd, many the wowing.

"Or how about how he protected the Sorcerer's Stone from You-Know-who first year." says a Weasley twin.

"Don't forget about the Triwizard Tournament last year," says a Ravenclaw girl.

Hermione looks pleased by this praise given to Harry.

Harry himself looks a bit uncomfortable by this rubbing the back of his neck, "I don't think I could do this by myself."

"Well then choose someone to be a partner with you," Hermione says

He looks at his hands seemingly thinking, he hums and lifts his head back up and stares at Vixen. She squints her eyes and glares at him, trying to communicate how bad of an idea this is.  
"How about Vixen?"

The group instantly speaks up about this, "The Slytherin?" "Are you sure we can trust her?" "Why is she even here in the first place?"

"You lot do realize I'm right here, living and breathing."

They turn around, taking in her presence. 

"How come you’re here?"

"Granger brought me here."

"Hermione?" Some of the people in the crowd exclaim.

Hermione sighs and wrings her hands together, "Yes I brought her here, she has amazing dueling skills. Also, she has a great understanding of spells."

They all give an unblinking look, not believing what they're hearing.

Vixen herself just sighs, "Listen you won't even know that I'm here if anything. If Harry wants me to help I’ll just advise on spells to use, I won’t teach you guys if you aren’t comfortable with that."

The group considers this, some of them accepting this answer.

Hermione smiles at this, "Okay well now that’s discussed, who is in favor of these lessons."

All of the Weasleys raise their hands, Neville, and 7 other students raise their hands. After a moment the others raise their hands.

"Okay, so where are we going to meet?"

"An unused classroom?" Neville suggests.

"That can work, we can look into it."

Hermione nods her hand at this, "Ok that'll work." She then grabs a parchment from her bag, "I think it would be a good idea to write our names down, so everyone knows each other."

The air instantly becomes uncomfortable by this suggestion. 

"I don't think that's a great idea, what if it's found by someone like Umbridge."  
"Do you honestly think I would just leave something like this lying around? It is fine the parchment is enchanted."

With that everyone starts to sign the parchment. Vixen signs it last after everyone else has finished. 

"Also, what should we call ourselves?"

"The Anti-Umbridge League?" This gets a laugh from everyone.

"Something less obvious."

"What about Dumbledore's Army."

Everyone makes an exciting noise in agreement, Vixen nodding her head at the name.  
"Okay, so we'll go by Dumbledore's Army, the D.A. for short."  
With that, the group breaks away, where Hermione goes "We'll let you know when the next meeting is going to be."

Vixen stays behind with the other three and stares at them. "Why would you offer my name up for a position that could've been risky."  
Hermione rolls her eyes, "It's going to be fine Vixen, everything will work out."  
She then walks towards Vixen and nudges her shoulder, "Come on now." She grabs her hand and walks her towards the door.

As the days pass onto weeks Vixen keeps to her group of friends, the others not having time to get together with Umbridge's new reign for terror. As she gave herself more power, she went around making new rules, outrageous rules if Vixen had anything to say about it. Vixen is sitting on her bed looking through all the books that she could find on 'patronus’, she has learned a fair share of information but has yet to be able to corporeal one. She has only gotten as bright-silver sparks coming from her wand. She is hoping with the D.A. and Harry teaching it maybe she can learn to do so. She continues to read through her books underlining information she found to be of importance when she hears a knock.  
She looks up and sees Pansy, she had knocked on the door frame to get her attention, “Erm, I think Potter is here for you.”  
Vixen quirks an eyebrow, “What makes you think that?”  
“Well Draco isn’t here, and he has no business with me and Blaise this late.”  
Vixen chuckles at this, “And he has business with Draco this late?”  
She doesn’t get a response but instead a stare that says ‘Really.’  
“Fair enough.” Vixen then gets up from bed, removing her legs from underneath her and onto the floor. She heads over to her wardrobe and grabs a coat, then she tosses it on. The coat is a dark red fuzzy coat that reaches to about her ankles. She was currently in some jams her mother bought her, and they were not made for cold weather, it was a pair of knee-length shorts and a short-sleeve shirt.  
She walks past Pansy and tells her, “Don't wait up for me, I don’t know what Potter wants but it might take a while.”  
“Do you want me to come with?”  
“No, I’ll be fine. Night Pans.”

She then turns and leaves the common room. Once she’s outside she doesn’t see anyone, she looks around a little bit more. Thinking that he has probably up and left she starts to turn around when she hears a little “psst.” She looks around again and still sees nothing but hears an “Over here.”  
Right when that was said Harry’s head pops out of thin air.  
“Blimey, Harry where on earth is the rest of your body?”

“It’s fine, see look.” And with one movement the rest of his body is shown. It seems that Harry was under a cloak that made him invisible. She goes to grab it and try to get a closer look, he moves it away from her, “No you can have a look at it later.”  
She looks at him with a little glare, “Really Potter.”  
“Yes, now come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there, now let’s get moving.”

He then starts walking, a cue for Vixen to walk after him. They walk up the castle and end up on the seventh floor where Vixen stops, “Why are we going to the Gryffindor common room?”

He stops and smiles at her, “We’re not going to the Gryffindor common room.”

“The only thing up here Potter is the door to Headmaster Dumbledore’s office, Flitwick’s office, and the Gryffindor common room. So where else are we going?”

“None of those places trust me.”

He gives her one last smile and continues walking. He stops walking when they get at a dead-end.  
“What are we doing here?”

“Just watch.”

He then starts walking past the wall from end to end three times, Vixen watches him in confusion. He then stops right back where he started, and as Vixen goes to asking a question a door appears. She blinks at the door a few times, not sure what just happened. Harry just laughs, he then grabs her arm and pulls her to the door.  
“Come on.”

He opens the door and takes her into the door. Past the door is a massive room, the floor is covered by concrete with nine mats covering the floor. On the walls are large windows lighting the room slightly, and a fireplace in the front center. She walks in more and goes, “Woah, this place is amazing.” She then notices a mirror almost as tall as the windows.  
“What is this place, Harry?”

“I thought we could use this as our first meeting today”

“This could work for- wait today?”

“Yeah today, I’ve already asked everyone to come. They should be here in about an hour.”

“Why didn’t you say something before we left, I look a complete mess you wanker.” She starts fussing with her hair in the mirror, it is all over the place.  
“You look fine, well at least Hermione will think so.”

Vixen stops messing with her hair when he says that, and glares at his cheeky little face in the mirror.  
“Stop taking the piss Potter, Granger doesn’t look at me in any way.”

“Yes she does, it’s honestly disgusting watching you two fawn over each other.”

“You mean the same way you and Draco look at each other.”

“We don’t look at each other in any way,”

“You so do, it’s gross watching you two bicker and go back and forth with each other. Like do you two ever hear yourselves, ‘Oh shut it, Potter, my hair doesn’t look good today’ ‘Well Malfoy I be to differ, it looks great and anyone who thinks different is a tosser.’ ‘Oi, are you calling me a tosser.’”

“Well, you are no better, ‘You know so much about charms Granger it’s truly fascinating. You’re beautiful and smart, what can’t you do?’ You just sit there and make her blush because you find it cute and it’s bleh.”

“Piss off Potter, I just compliment her because it’s true.”

“You also do it because you’re a flirtatious gay in love with an oblivious bisexual.”

She gasps at this, “Me a flirtatious gay? Have you seen yourself, the messy bisexual that likes to purposely argue with the faked annoyed gay.”

He doesn’t say anything and just laughs, Vixen joining laughing so hard she bends over.  
The two stop laughing after awhile, Vixen straightens up and wipes under her eye.  
“Who knew you were such a jokester Potter.”

“Okay, no more joking. Let’s discuss what plans I have for this meeting and then I’ll go get everyone.”

They begin discussing the spells they think are the most beneficial to learn, but also easy to grasp for everyone. Their voices carry through the room as they plan out everything for today's meeting, the air around them seemingly peaceful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone enjoyed it, sorry for the way I ended the chapter I felt like everything was too squished into one chapter so   
> Kudos and comments are appreciated.


End file.
